The V-2, the world first ballistic missile, was deployed by the German Army in 1944-45 against cities in Britain, Belgium, and France. Its aluminum-magnesium alloy fuel tank normally carried a load of 3965 kg (8740 lb) of a mixture of 75% alcohol (either pure ethanol, or an ethanol/methanol mix) and 25% water. The tank was tapered toward the front to fit into the missile's shape, and had a pipe for fuelling on top and a main fuel duct on the bottom. The water-alcohol mixture was sucked by the rocket engine's turbopump through a pipe which passed through the liquid-oxygen tank, located below it in the missile.

It is not clear where NASM's artifact was made, but was in all likelihood captured in 1945 by the US Army at the Mittelwerk underground plant near Nordhausen, Germany, where concentration-camp prisoners would have installed it in a missile on the assembly line.