 
Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) was one of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration in the twentieth century. From his teenage years, von Braun held a fascination for space flight, becoming involved in the German Society for Space Travel in 1928. As a way of satisfying his desire to build large working rockets, in late 1932 he went to work for the German army to develop liquid-fuel missiles.Based on his research on liquid-propellant rocketry, von Braun received a doctorate in physics in 1934 from the University in Berlin. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and became a junior SS officer in 1940. The V–2 ballistic missile was the primary creation of von Braun's rocket team. After 1937 they worked in a secret laboratory at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast. A liquid propellant missile weighing 13,000 kilograms, the V-2 flew at speeds above 5,600 kilometres per hour, delivering a 1000 kg warhead to a target 320 km away. First successfully launched in October 1942, it was eventually employed against targets in Western Europe, including London and Paris, beginning in September 1944. By late 1944, it was obvious to von Braun that Germany would be defeated and occupied. He surrendered to the Americans in the Austrian Alps, along with other team members. For 15 years after World War II, Von Braun worked with the U.S. Army in the development of guided missiles. As part of a military operation called Project Paperclip, he and a group other scientists were sent to America, where they worked on rockets for the U.S. Army and assisted in V-2 launches at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico. 
In 1950 von Braun's team moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where they designed the U.S. Army's Redstone and Jupiter ballistic missiles, as well as eventually the Jupiter C, Juno II, and Saturn I launch vehicles. A Jupiter C orbited the first U.S satellite, Explorer I, in 1958. Von Braun also became one of the most prominent advocates for space exploration in the United States during the 1950s through 1970s, writing numerous books and magazine articles. I owned his book Space Frontier, which I purchased in my second year of university. Von Braun also served as a spokesman for three Walt Disney television programs on space travel. 
In 1960, President Eisenhower transferred the rocket group to the newly established National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Von Braun and a team of scientists worked on the Mercury-Redstone, the rocket that sent the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, on a suborbital flight in 1961. Shortly after Shepard's successful flight, President John F. Kennedy challenged America to send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. Von Braun became director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that would first propel Americans to the Moon in July 1969. In 1970, von Braun moved to Washington, D.C., to lead the agency's strategic planning effort. He retired from NASA in 1972. Werhner von Braun died in Virginia on June 16, 1977. |