A tale of rocketry and hair cream

"There is no computerized explorer in the world with more than a tiny fraction of the power of a chemical analog computer known as the human brain, which is easily reproduced by unskilled labor." This quote is attributed to Wernher von Braun, a rocket designer for the Nazis then the Americans. At first he was like, "hey these national socialists are alright," but then he was like, "no these national socialists are all together distasteful, I like them not even a little bit." His brain was extremely precious - for he knew more than anyone alive about how to burn fuel to make things go fast and far - and so America took him under its great eagle wing, and said, "forget about all that Nazi business. Can you make us a super fast rocket?" And he answered them, "I certainly can." Ahh, these were heady days, when a man pulled his socks up tight, coated is hair in a sheen of brylcreem, and ordered the world in the severe tones of black and white.

So when Wernher von Braun surrendered to the Americans, his captors quickly set about determining the high quality of his brain matter, and based on their results concluded that it simply wouldn't do to have such a razor sharp man incarcerated for his long tenure as a Nazi party member, no, he would come over to their side, comb is luxurious hair with American made products, damn it. For what could be more important that devising powerful rockets? How else could the Americans show those god damn Bolsheviks that their appropriation of German engineering talent was top-notch? Anyway, the Russians could hardly even comb their hair properly, many suspected, for what ointments had they at their disposal? Nothing but socialist, Marxist ointments, those that were doggedly mashed in the community mortar by the community pestle. "Thanks but no thanks, we'll take our ointments from the free marketers, them what know how to run a business."

And so began the greatest hair cream race of our time, nothing could compare. There went the lathered comb of our newly minted American and rocketry ace Wernher von Braun. His hair glistening in the morning sunlight, he would take to his laboratory, leading his team deep into top-secret projects, not a single hair falling out of place. Not to be outdone, his Russian counter part Sergey Korolyov also combed his hair, perhaps more carefully than our transplanted American, for he knew that at any moment there may be a shortage in hair product, or worse the great man of iron might demand for himself all the best hair ointments. Grumbling in his laboratory, a hair or two falling in front of eyes Korolyov might have thought, but dare not have exclaimed, "God damn our cursed leader, he hordes the highest quality hair creams for himself! How can I be expected to do my duty for the motherland when my hair won't keep its shape throughout the long day?" But no one would answer him because he only thought these thoughts, and did not state them. Then there would have been a knock at his door, no there wouldn't have been a knock, the door would have suddenly burst opened and several men he had never seen before would have come to take him away. It turned out that Stalin had been spying on his thoughts! Korolyov could not get away with such mutinous scheming!

Back in America, von Braun would take his break from his daily labors in a park adjacent to his laboratory. He could think any and all the thoughts he wanted. He gently patted the top of his head, making sure that his hair remained still and luminous, just as he had styled it earlier that day. Of course, for whatever reason, should his hair require some tending to, he would dig down into his coat pockets, underneath his top-secret missives, his small notebooks containing his groundbreaking formulae and equations, underneath all this he would find his trusty tube of hair salve. In a practiced movement he would coat his comb with a layer of the precious paste and then, calmly but not without some measure of excitement, trace the comb along familiar paths, reaffirming his commitment to his conservative but comely hair style. "Ahh, nothing quite like a well-tended head," he might sigh, just as a deer bot fly flies by. The speeding insect might have given him a moment's pause, causing him to make a few calculations, maybe leading him to consider the possibility of sending a man to the moon. It was a eureka moment, and as quickly as possible - but not so quickly as to mess up his hair - von Braun raced back to the lab, with yet another brilliant idea churning beneath his perfectly combed head.