THE CASE OF WERNHER VON BRAUN
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) was a German-American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was the leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Germany and a pioneer of rocket technology and space science in the United States.
While in his twenties and early thirties, von Braun worked in Nazi Germany's rocket development program. He helped design and develop the V-2 rocket at Peenemünde during World War II.
Following the war, he was secretly moved to the United States, along with about 1,600 other German scientists, engineers, and technicians, as part of Operation Paperclip. He worked for the United States Army on an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) program, and he developed the rockets that launched the United States' first space satellite Explorer 1.
His group was assimilated into NASA, where he served as director of the newly formed Marshall Space Flight Center and as the chief architect of the Saturn V super heavy-lift launch vehicle that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. In 1975, von Braun received the National Medal of Science. He advocated a human mission to Mars.
Wernher von Braun was born on March 23, 1912, in the small town of Wirsitz, in the Posen Province, in what was then the German Empire and is now Poland. He was the second of three sons. He belonged to a noble Lutheran family, and from birth he held the title of Freiherr (equivalent to Baron). The German nobility's legal privileges were abolished in 1919, although noble titles could still be used as part of the family name.
After Wernher's confirmation, his mother gave him a telescope, and he developed a passion for astronomy. The family moved to Berlin in 1915, where his father worked at the Ministry of the Interior. Here in 1924, the 12-year-old Wernher, inspired by speed records established by Max Valier and Fritz von Opel in rocket-propelled cars, caused a major disruption in a crowded street by detonating a toy wagon to which he had attached fireworks. He was taken into custody by the local police until his father came to get him.
Wernher later developed the V2 rocket that was directed at Britain in the Autumn of 1944, and London was under attack from space. Hitler's 'vengeance' rocket, the V-2, was the world's first ballistic missile, and the first man-made object to make a sub-orbital spaceflight. Over 1400 were launched at Britain, with more than 500 striking London. Each hit caused devastation.
An estimated 2,754 civilians were killed in London by V-2 attacks with another 6,523 injured.
By late 1944, it was obvious to von Braun that Germany would be destroyed and occupied, and he began planning for the postwar era. Before the Allied capture of the V–2 rocket complex, von Braun was sent south, eventually to Bavaria and surrendered to the Americans there, along with other key team leaders. For fifteen years after World War II, Von Braun worked with the U.S. Army in the development of ballistic missiles. As part of a military operation called Project Paperclip, he and an initial group of about 125 were sent to America where they were installed at Fort Bliss, Texas. There 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 the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, where they designed the Army’s Redstone and Jupiter ballistic missiles, as well as 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, writing numerous books and several articles for magazines such as Collier’s. Von Braun also served as a spokesman for three Walt Disney television programs on space travel, Man in Space.
