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Comment by jand | Hacker News Reader

Could you please change the title to be less clickbaity?

A Nazi rocket... as opposed to communism rockets and god-fearing, democracy rockets?

Please.

It was a Nazi rocket through and through, built by slave labor at the Mittelwerk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk) and serving as one of Hitler's vengeance weapons. No need to whitewash it.

I remember reading that the V2 was a weapon where more people were killed producing it than were killed by it.

But both groups were people the Nazis wanted dead, so this isn't quite as ironic as it might sound at first blush.

'Nazi rocket' is from the original title (although for some reason the title here has been subtly changed - from "How a Nazi rocket could have put a Briton in space").

It's also a specific and potentially interesting piece of information, as opposed to 'communism rockets'. It refers to a specific regime, like someone referring to a 'Roman sword'.

Thanks for pointing this out. I left 'Nazi rocket' in as I felt it was essential to the point of the article: A story about clamour to obtain wartime tech to repurpose for space exploration.

The reason for the change is simple. The one misleading term in the title is the word 'Briton'. A Briton is not a British person, but rather an archaic term for a Celtic person who inhabited ancient Britain.

I thought it would be FAR more click-baity to suggest an ancient Celt tried to reach space in a rocket.

The OED and common usage both agree that Briton is a standard term for a British person, and incidentally also an archaic term for Celtic people who inhabited ancient Britain...

I'm pretty sure the BBC know what "briton" means.

Then the BBC article is just as clickbaity so you'll be needing this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/contact_us/making_a_complaint....

The submission rephrases the BBC's title, so there's not even the excuse that it's just quoting it.

(And in any case it's not just hyperbolic, it's a lie. A rocket based on a modification of a German design, but designed and built in Britain, cannot be reasonably considered a "German rocket," let alone a "Nazi rocket.")

The article appears to make it pretty clear that the engineering breakthroughs were all part of the V2:

"Engineers overseeing the tests realized that von Braun had solved fundamental problems in rocketry: he had designed a sizeable engine, an advanced pump to get fuel in fast enough and a sophisticated guidance system."

Well... no. I am no BBC regular, but an HN regular.

It is worth doing this. We pay our license fee specifically so that we get a non-commercial public interest broadcaster (i.e. in this case non-clickbait article titles).

(OK we pay our license fee because otherwise some nasty people take us to court with a criminal charge -- but some of use don't mind paying our license fee because of the whole public service broadcaster thing.)

Well personally I believe "Nazi <specific technology type or name>" is an incredibly common phrasing structure and it seems odd to call out this HN topic or the BBC article for using it. Just search Google for "nazi rocket" for example. Or try "nazi weapons".

Try searching google for "awesome facts about".

It is very common. But the quality of the content behind the links is less then optimal.

But the quality of the content is completely optimal. You are clutching at straws. Just admit it; you didn't realise the phrase was incredibly common. Just like "Soviet rocket" or "Soviet <technology>" is. There is nothing wrong with using the words Nazi or Soviet, they are not in any way offensive to anyone. Politics doesn't come into it, it is just about being precise when referring to things.

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