Von Braun, Wernher, << von BROWN, VAR nuhr >> (1912-1977), was one of the world’s foremost rocket engineers and a leading authority on space travel. Von Braun directed teams that built the rockets that sent the first American into space and landed the first astronauts on the moon.
Von Braun was born on March 23, 1912, in Wirsitz, Germany (now Wyrzysk, Poland). In 1932, he became an adviser in Germany’s rocket program. He played a major role in developing the V-2 rocket, with which Germany bombed Allied cities during World War II (1939-1945). In 1944, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi secret police, tried to take over the German rocket program. He jailed von Braun, who had refused to cooperate. Von Braun’s friends persuaded Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator, to free von Braun later that year.
In 1945, von Braun led a group of German scientists who surrendered to the United States Army. Von Braun and 116 others were sent to the United States to work on guided missile systems. In 1950, the Army assigned von Braun and his team to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, to develop the first large U.S. ballistic missile. Von Braun became a U.S. citizen in 1955.
Von Braun’s team developed the modified four-stage Jupiter rocket that launched Explorer 1, the first United States Earth satellite. Another of the group’s rockets, the Redstone, launched America’s first astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, Jr. , in 1961. Other von Braun projects included the Saturn rockets. In 1969, a Saturn V rocket launched the astronauts who made the first landing on the moon.
In 1960, von Braun and his team shifted to Huntsville’s new George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) . In 1970, NASA appointed von Braun deputy associate administrator for planning. In 1972, von Braun resigned from NASA and became an executive of Fairchild Industries, a major aerospace company. From 1975 to 1977, he was president of the National Space Institute, an organization that sought to promote better public understanding of the U.S. space program. Von Braun died on June 16, 1977.
