On October 3, 1942, a test rocket known as the Aggregat 4 roared off a coastal launchpad in Peenemünde, Germany, reaching an altitude of nearly 85 kilometers. It was the first human-engineered object to touch the boundary of space. While forged in wartime desperation and sustained by brutal forced labor, the A-4—later designated the V-2—fundamentally rewired human technological ambition. Its high-thrust liquid propellant, supersonic aerodynamics, and gyroscopic inertial guidance did not merely inaugurate ballistic missile warfare; they drafted the architectural blueprint for the Saturn V and planetary exploration. That morning proved the sky was no longer a fixed ceiling, but an accessible frontier. For the modern technologist, it remains a haunting case study in how the systems capable of carrying our species to the stars can emerge from the darkest crucibles of destruction.