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.