V-S Day: A Novel of Alternate History

For Rob Caswell

On the afternoon of October 19, 1899, I climbed a tall cherry tree at the back of [my uncle’s] barn and, armed with a saw and hatchet, started to trim the dead limbs from the tree. It was one of those quiet, colorful afternoons of sheer beauty which we have in October in New England and, as I looked toward the fields to the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale if sent up from the meadow at my feet… I was a different boy when I descended the ladder. Life now had a purpose for me.

—ROBERT H. GODDARD

I had no illusions whatsoever as to the tremendous amount of money necessary to convert the liquid-fuel rocket from the exciting toy… to a serious machine that could blaze the trail for the space ship of the future… To me, the Army’s money was the only hope for big progress toward space travel.

—WERNHER VON BRAUN