On October 3, 1942, the Aggregat 4 rocket roared off a Baltic launchpad at Peenemünde, arcing eighty-five kilometers upward to become the first human-made object to touch the boundary of space. Controlled by early analog guidance computers and thrust-vectoring graphite vanes, this liquid-fueled breakthrough validated the physics that would eventually launch humanity into orbit. Yet the machine, soon christened the V-2, represents technology's most harrowing paradox: assembled under horrific conditions by enslaved laborers for wartime terror, its captured schematics and engineers subsequently built the bedrock of both NASA and Soviet space programs. Walter Dornberger declared that day the birth of the spaceship. For modern technologists, October 3 serves as the ultimate reminder of engineering's dual nature—the exact same propulsion architecture that enables orbital civilization was forged in the crucible of planetary devastation.