Wernher von Braun

I

Introduction

Wernher von Braun (1912-1977), German-American engineer, known for his development of the liquid-fuel rocket, and as a leading authority on space exploration. Von Braun helped design both the V-2 guided missile used by Nazi Germany during World War II and the Saturn V rocket booster used by NASA during the Apollo program to take humans to the Moon.

Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr Von Braun was born on March 23, 1912, into a minor German aristocratic family in Wirsitz, Posen (now Poznań, in Poland). From an early age he was interested in space flight. In 1929 he joined the German rocket society, Verein für Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel), and the following year he enrolled at the Berlin Institute of Technology.

II

Rocket Work in Germany

In 1932 von Braun went to work for the German Army to develop powerful artillery rockets. His unit launched two successful rockets in 1934, Max and Moritz, and also began to develop a jet-assisted take-off device for heavy bombers and all-rocket fighters. In the same year he received a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Berlin.

In 1937 von Braun’s team moved to a secret site at Peenemünde, located on the Baltic coast, where he developed the V-2 ballistic missile that was used against London during World War II (1939-1945). Von Braun also joined the Nazi Party in 1937. In 1943, after Allied bombers had attacked Peenemünde, production and testing of the V-2 moved to Mittelbau, near Nordhausen, in central Germany. An underground factory was built and the rockets were manufactured by slave labor under appalling conditions to hasten their production. V-2s were first launched against targets in Europe in early September 1944. Thousands of civilians were killed by V-2 attacks. Many thousands of prisoners also died during the manufacture of the rockets.

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Realizing in 1945 that the war was coming to an end, von Braun surrendered 500 of his rocket scientists to the advancing United States forces. In the ensuing race between the United States and the Soviet Union for the spoils of this technology, the United States captured all the remaining V-2s and equipment at Peenemünde and Nordhausen, and transported them to the United States (using more than 300 train cars), while the Soviets captured most of von Braun’s production team.

III

Missile and Space Work in United States

The American effort to round up German rocket scientists and bring them to the United States was named Operation Paperclip. Under the project, von Braun and 126 members of his team were installed by the United States Army at Fort Bliss, Texas. They launched their rockets at the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico. In 1950 von Braun and his team were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, where they built the United States Army’s Jupiter ballistic missile that launched the first United States satellite, Explorer 1, on January 31, 1958. Von Braun became a naturalized United States citizen in 1955.

In 1960 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) opened the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville with von Braun as its first director. He supervised the building of the giant Saturn rockets for the Apollo Moon program. On July 16, 1969, a Saturn V rocket launched the crew of Apollo 11, the mission in which man first set foot on the Moon. Six subsequent teams of astronauts were sent to explore the Moon during the Apollo program. After the Apollo program, the Saturn V rocket launched the Skylab space station.

In 1970 von Braun headed NASA’s strategic planning in Washington, D.C. He retired from NASA in 1972, and died in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 16, 1977.

IV

Books on Space Travel

Von Braun popularized space exploration in television films, made with the Disney Studio, and in his books and articles. Among his books are Across the Space Frontier (1952), with J. Kaplan and others; Conquest of the Moon (1953); Man on the Moon (1953), with F. L. Whipple and W. Ley; Mars Project (1953); Exploration of Mars (1956), with W. Ley; First Men to the Moon (1960); Careers in Astronautics and Rocketry (1962), with C. C. Adams and F. I. Ordway; Space Frontier (1967); and History of Rocketry and Space Travel (1969), with F. I. Ordway.