Blazers Owner Paul Allen Displays Restored Nazi German Rocket In Washington Museum

Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen is making the most of his offseason. After recently selling a pair of blue curtains painting for $43.8 million, he has now purchased, restored and displayed a 46-foot tall V-2 rocket used by Nazi Germany in World War 2 at his Flying Heritage Museum in Everett, Washington.

Bill Sheets of the Herald Net reports that there are now only six such rockets in the United States and 16 total in the world. Even better, the paper filmed time-lapse video of the rocket being assembled (below).

Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen added the rocket to his collection of World War II-era aircraft and weapons in 2003, and its restoration was recently completed, military aviation curator Cory Graff said.

The restored rocket was brought to the Flying Heritage Collection museum at Paine Field in three sections on Monday, and crews worked all day to have the rocket reassembled and ready for display today.

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"It's definitely an iconic piece of machinery. It fits very well into our technology theme," Graff said. "It's great to have that as an example of a milestone of World War II aviation and technology."

Aubrey Cohen of the Seattle PI has more details.

Just like Christmas here, except you know what's in the package," Graff said. And most Christmas gifts aren't 46 feet tall, with the ability to carry 2,000 pounds of explosives 200 miles at 3,400 mph.

V-2, short for Vergeltungswaffe (Retaliation Weapon) 2, was the commonly used name of the Aggregat-4 rocket, which Germany deployed in the last year of World War II. It was the world's first long-range ballistic missile, the first human-made object to travel into space and the basis for future U.S. and Soviet rockets and ballistic missiles.

Image via HeraldNet video on YouTube

-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter