proflaser
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Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Wernher von Braun, the Marshall Space Flight Center's first director, a father of modern rocketry and one of the earliest champions of human space exploration.
Born in Wirsitz, Germany, on March 23, 1912, von Braun became a space buff in childhood, devouring the science fiction of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. He left fiction behind after reading physicist Hermann Oberth's 1923 report, By Rocket to Space, however, and took up the study of calculus and trigonometry so he could master the physics of rocketry.
By the time he received his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1934, von Braun already was working for the German military, assisting Oberth in building and firing small, liquid-fueled rockets. During World War II, von Braun led rocket research at the German propulsion laboratory in Peenemünde. Afterward, he and key members of his team came to the United States to advise the military on developing its own rocket program.
In 1950, von Braun moved to Huntsville to oversee rocket development at Redstone Arsenal -- and launched work which earned the growing urban community its most famous nickname: "Rocket City."
By the time the Marshall Center opened on Redstone in 1960, von Braun had been a naturalized U.S. citizen for five years. As Marshall's first director, he spearheaded development of rockets for NASAs Mercury and Apollo space programs. He also tirelessly sought to fire the public's imagination and interest in spaceflight, delivering passionate, enthralling presentations in a variety of high-profile, public mediums -- from an historic series of visionary articles about future space travel in Collier's Weekly to thrilling documentary features for Walt Disney.
His crowning achievement came in November 1967, when the massive Saturn V rocket was successfully launched for the first time. A year later, this monument to human accomplishment would propel the first human voyage to the moon, and explorers would walk there, for the first time in human history, on July 21, 1969.
Von Braun died in 1977, the same year the first space shuttle began flight tests. That successful, 30-year program -- and ongoing scientific study aboard the orbiting International Space Station, the realization of another of von Braun's early concepts -- carry on his remarkable legacy of ingenuity and invention.
Born in Wirsitz, Germany, on March 23, 1912, von Braun became a space buff in childhood, devouring the science fiction of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. He left fiction behind after reading physicist Hermann Oberth's 1923 report, By Rocket to Space, however, and took up the study of calculus and trigonometry so he could master the physics of rocketry.
By the time he received his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1934, von Braun already was working for the German military, assisting Oberth in building and firing small, liquid-fueled rockets. During World War II, von Braun led rocket research at the German propulsion laboratory in Peenemünde. Afterward, he and key members of his team came to the United States to advise the military on developing its own rocket program.
In 1950, von Braun moved to Huntsville to oversee rocket development at Redstone Arsenal -- and launched work which earned the growing urban community its most famous nickname: "Rocket City."
By the time the Marshall Center opened on Redstone in 1960, von Braun had been a naturalized U.S. citizen for five years. As Marshall's first director, he spearheaded development of rockets for NASAs Mercury and Apollo space programs. He also tirelessly sought to fire the public's imagination and interest in spaceflight, delivering passionate, enthralling presentations in a variety of high-profile, public mediums -- from an historic series of visionary articles about future space travel in Collier's Weekly to thrilling documentary features for Walt Disney.
His crowning achievement came in November 1967, when the massive Saturn V rocket was successfully launched for the first time. A year later, this monument to human accomplishment would propel the first human voyage to the moon, and explorers would walk there, for the first time in human history, on July 21, 1969.
Von Braun died in 1977, the same year the first space shuttle began flight tests. That successful, 30-year program -- and ongoing scientific study aboard the orbiting International Space Station, the realization of another of von Braun's early concepts -- carry on his remarkable legacy of ingenuity and invention.
