Is it true that a rocket-firing "countdown" was first used as a plot device in a movie?

Question

I heard this somewhere (senior brain can't recall exactly where) -- that the origin of the "And five and four and three and two and one blastoff" thing was not from aerospace procedures, but started from an old movie.

Is this true?

If so, what movie?

Answer 1

Yes, this is correct. The movie was a 1929 german science fiction movie called Frau im Mond, which translates to Woman in the Moon. You can read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_in_th...

Answer 2

The answer is yes.  The rocket countdown was first employed in the Fritz Lang science-fiction film "Frau im Mond" in the 1920s (quite long before von Braun's Peenemunde work).  But it was at the suggestion of German rocket scientist Hermann Oberth who served as a consultant on the film.  Before then, there was no countdown.  As rocket launches became more sophisticated, the countdown served a useful purpose to organize and sequence the activities.  A modern rocket "countdown" is thousands of lines of computer program code precisely connected to a timebase measuring it in thousandths of a second.

Answer 3

I remember reading that the first countdown was done spontaneously by a technician for an early rocket launch.Unfortunately, I can't find which one.

Answer 4

There's no "and". Also, they used to skip "five" because it sounded like "fire".

The aerospace industry borrowed a lot of its early pracice from artillery operators, who used countdowns for many large ordinances. Countdowns have always been used for large rockets, dating back to the first true rockets at Penemunde. Countdowns don't start at 10 seconds, though. They start hours and hours earlier. NASA has a short-range radio station where you can listen in to the countdown and other relevant launch information in the hours bulding up to a launch.