VON BRAUN, Wernher

(b. 23 March 1912 in Wirsitz, Germany; d. 16 June 1977 in Alexandria, Virginia), astro-physicist and engineer, "the father of space travel," who played a vital role in rocket design and space exploration and who developed the launch system used in the Apollo space program.

Von Braun was the second of three sons born to Baron Magnus Alexander Maximilian von Braun, a magistrate and minister of nutrition and agriculture in the Weimer Republic, and Emmy von Quistorp, a homemaker. Von Braun's mother was a well-educated woman who fostered her son's interests in outer space by introducing him to the "science fiction" writers Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

Von Braun graduated from the Berlin-Charlottenburg Institute of Technology in 1932 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering and aircraft construction. While in school he became involved in the German Society for Space Travel, organized by Hermann Oberth, a group that experimented with launching small liquid-fuel rockets. After funding ran out, von Braun accepted an offer from the German army to join their ordnance department. The military was interested in rockets because they were unregulated by the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace agreement that ended World War I. Von Braun used the information he gained to write his doctoral dissertation in physics, which he completed at the University of Berlin in 1934.

The Nazi regime financed rocket development, and von Braun was a part of their program. Although some V-1 and V-2 rockets were launched, they were too late and ineffective to be of strategic value to the German war effort. Rather, the value was in the rocket technology, for the work of von Braun and his team was more advanced than that of any other country. As it became obvious that Germany was losing the war, von Braun and his group decided to be captured by the Americans rather than the Russians. Therefore, they moved to a Bavarian resort and surrendered to the Americans on 2 May 1945. About 120 of the scientists went to the United States to continue their research in a rocket project called Operation Paperclip. Von Braun returned to Germany to marry his cousin Maria Louise von Quistorp on 1 March 1947; they had three children.

Originally, von Braun and other scientists tested, assembled, and supervised the launching of captured V-2 rockets in White Sands, New Mexico. In 1952 von Braun moved to the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, as technical director of the U.S. Army's ballistic weapons program. On 15 April 1955 von Braun and forty of his associates became U.S. citizens. During the 1950s he actively promoted space flight, including the launching of an earth satellite, on television, and in books and magazines. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and the U.S. Navy's Vanguard rocket exploded in 1957, the von Braun group launched the first U.S. satellite, Explorer I, on 31 January 1958. The federal government began funding space exploration to increase national pride, as well as to gain scientific knowledge, and Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson gave the space program their complete support. Von Braun and his team became part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

As the space race continued, von Braun assumed a pivotal role. By late 1961 he was director of the Marshall Space Flight Center and controlled 40 percent of NASA's budget. He became responsible for supplying NASA with booster rockets. Von Braun and his team at Huntsville conceived the Saturn I using the latest advances in technology. By 1962 NASA could estimate the size of the booster needed for a manned space mission. To determine its exact requirements, a decision had to be made from three operational concepts—direct ascent with no intermediate stages; earth orbit rendezvous which combines payloads from craft in earth orbit; and lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR), in which a single rocket launches separable spacecraft. After the spacecraft is in orbit, the lunar module detaches and lands on the moon. Although von Braun did not originally favor LOR, he later supported it as a way to win the cooperation of the Houston Manned Space Center and continue to be part of the space race.

Von Braun was forced to accept a different approach to rocket testing. In 1963 George Mueller, the new head of the office of Manned Space Flight, calculated that at the rate the program was progressing, it would be impossible to land a man on the moon before 1970. He recommended using "all up" testing instead of step-by-step testing, which meant testing all the components of the Saturn V together. This approach was heresy to the German engineers, who had been testing components individually since the 1930s and had witnessed numerous rocket failures. The Apollo missions, using the Saturn IB rocket (Apollo 7) and the Saturn V rocket (Apollo 8, 10, and 11), were key engineering successes that acted as a precursor to the manned moon landing.

Von Braun was lauded as a national hero. He received numerous awards, such as the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy (1958), the Distinguished Federal Civilian Service Award (1959), and the National Medal of Science (1977). After the successful moon landing, there were no new space projects on the horizon. Von Braun moved on to NASA administration in Washington, D.C., in 1970. As funding ended for new projects, he left for private industry in 1972, working for Fairchild Industries in Maryland on satellite development and deployment.

Von Braun enjoyed being in the limelight. After Sputnik landed, he was a common sight on Capitol Hill testifying before Congress, mesmerizing them with his knowledge and charm. From 1958, when the Explorer I was launched, until 1966, he received nineteen honorary doctorate degrees and joined eighteen professional organizations. He wrote several hundred articles, although few were technical or scientific pieces. He produced monthly articles for Popular Science for ten years and coauthored History of Rocketry and Space Travel in 1966 with Frederick I. Ordway.

Von Braun has been accused of knowing that slave laborers and workers from the Dora concentration camp produced the V-2s, and that the Nazis abused the workers. Throughout his life, von Braun continued to deny any knowledge of the conditions in the concentration camps. Many critics feel, however, that he knew the conditions of the camps but chose to ignore them to continue producing rockets at the Nordhausen facility—his blinding passion. His failures appear to be indirect—not protesting about the camp conditions rather than inflicting them. Von Braun died of cancer and is buried at Ivy Hill Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia.

The Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress has many of von Braun's papers from the period of 1950 to 1970, and the NASA History Division in Washington, D.C., has other papers, along with von Braun's writings, speeches, interviews, and newspaper clippings. Biographies of von Braun include Helen B. Walters, Wernher von Braun: Rocket Engineer (1964); John C. Good-rum, Wernher von Braun: Space Pioneer (1969); Erik Bergaust, Wernher von Braun (1976); Christopher Lampton, Wernher von Braun (1988); Ernst Stulinger and Frederick I. Ordway, Wernher von Braun: Crusader for Space (1994); Diane K. Moser and Ray Spangenburg, Wernher von Braun: Space Visionary and Rocket Engineer (1995); and Dennis Piszkiewicz, Wernher von Braun: The Man Who Sold the Moon (1998). Biographical information is also in Walter Dornberger, V-2 (1954); Frederick I. Ordway and Mitchell R. Sharpe, The Rocket Team (1979); and Frank H. Winter, Rockets into Space (1990). Obituaries are in the Washington Star (17 June 1977), New York Times and Washington Post (both 18 June 1977); and Time and Newsweek (both 27 June 1977).

Sheila Beck