|
Name: | Wernher von Braun |
| Birth: | 23 March 1912 (Wirsitz, Eastern Germany) | |
| Death: | 16 June 1977 | |
| Career: | On 1 November 1932 he signed a contract with the Reichswehr (Army Ordnance Department) to conduct research leading to the development of rockets as military weapons. He eventually became technical director at Peenemünde (V2ROCKET.COM). After the war, he lead the development of the first American ballistic missile, the Redstone rocket. He eventually moved to NASA and helped the design the Saturn V, which put man on the moon (SpaceFame). (image: <http://www.law.harvard.edu/.../vonbraun.jpg>). | |
|
Name: | Walter Dornberger |
| Birth: | 6 September 1895 (Giessen, Germany) | |
| Death: | 27 June 1980 | |
| Career: | In 1932 he became head of the solid-fuel rocket research and development in the Army Ordnance Department, helping in the recruitment of Wernher von Braun. In 1937 he was appointed military commander at Peenemünde. He immigrated to the United States in 1947 where he worked as an adviser on the development of guided missiles. He later worked for the Bell Aircraft Corporation and on the Air Force-NASA Dyna-Soar project. (info: Spartacus Educational, image: Dornberger) | |
|
Name: | Hans Kammler |
| Birth: | 26 August 1901 (Stettin, Germany) | |
| Death: | April 1945 | |
| Career: | In 1940 he joined the SS, where he worked at designing facilities for the extermination camps. By summer of 1944, he had gained full control of production and deployment of the V2 missiles. Kammler was charged with constructing facilities for various secret weapons projects, including manufacturing plants and test stands for the Messerschmitt Me 262 and V-2. He was involved in the construction of the Mittelwerk subterranean rocket factory after the Allied raids on Peenemünde. (info/image: "Hans Kammler") | |
|
Name: | Arthur Rudolph |
| Birth: | 9 November 1906 (Stepfershausen, Germany) | |
| Death: | 1 January 1996 | |
| Career: | From 1943-1945, Rudolph was production engineering at the Mittelwerk subterranean rocket factory. After coming to the US in 1946, he became technical director of the Redstone Rocket, (the first American ballistic missile). Rudolph was the program manager for the Saturn V Launch Vehicle System which powered Apollo to the Moon. In 1984, after the discovery of his role in his role in the persecution of slave laborers at Mittelwerk, he surrendered his U.S. citizenship and returned to Germany. (info: Gallery of History, "National Archives", image: <http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4206/p273.jpg>) | |
|
Name: | Klaus Riedel |
| Birth: | 2 August 1907 (Wilhelmshaven, Germany) | |
| Death: | 4 August 1944 | |
| Career: | He became the Chief of Ground Support Equipment at Peenemünde where he was the first to design, develop, and perfect equipment for handling large rockets on the ground and getting them launched on their flights. (info: SpaceFame, image: <www.urbin.de/konstrukteure/riedel_k.htm>) | |
|
Name: | Walter Riedel |
| Birth: | 1902 | |
| Death: | 1968 | |
| Career: | Chief of the Design Bureau at Peenemünde. (info/image: Winter and Neufeld) | |
|
Name: | Paul Heylandt |
| Birth: | 6 February 1884 (Thuringia, Germany) | |
| Death: | 24 June 1947 | |
| Career: | His life's work was the commercial development of liquefied gases. He founded several corporations: Flüssige Luft-Machinen un Apparate at around 1908, Heylandt-Gesellschaft für Apparatebau in 1912, and Aktiengesellschaft für Industriegasverwertung in 1921. His corporations were a large supplier of liquid oxygen in Germany (which was the fuel source in many rockets). Haylandt became the financial backer of Max Valier. (info/image: Winter and Neufeld) | |
|
Name: | Max Valier |
| Birth: | 9 February 1895 (Bozen, Tyrol) | |
| Death: | 17 May 1930 | |
| Career: | Was instrumental in the creation of the VfR ("Society for Space Travel") which brought together some of the prominent future German rocket scientists, such as Walter Dornberger and Wernher von Braun. He built the first rocket-car in 1928 and rocket-sled in 1929. In 1929-1930 he worked on a liquid propellant rocket to power airplanes. (info: Winter and Neufeld, image: SpaceFame) | |
|
Name: | Robert Goddard |
| Birth: | 5 October 1882 (Worcester, Massachusetts) | |
| Death: | 10 August 1945 | |
| Career: | Is considered to be one of the three founding fathers of modern rocketry, along with Tsiolkovsky and Oberth. He launched the first liquid-fueled rocket on March 16, 1926. He performed a large number of experiments in rocketry, holding over 200 patents at the time of his death. He discovered many of the principles that now form the basis of modern rocketry. (info: Von Braun, SpaceFame, image: <http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/.../drgoddard.gif>) | |
|
Name: | Ernst Steinhoff |
| Birth: | 11 February 1908 (Treysa, West Germany) | |
| Death: | ? | |
| Career: | In June 1939 he was appointed Director for Flight Mechanics, Ballistics, Guidance and Control and Instrumentation at the German Rocket Research Center at Peenemünde. In America, he held various positions with several military organizations. In the mid 1960s, he helped in the construction of launch platforms which were used in the Apollo missions. (info/image: SpaceFame) | |
|
Name: | Heinrich Himmler |
| Birth: | 7 October 1900 (Munich, Germany) | |
| Death: | 23 May 1945 | |
| Career: | In 1929, Hitler made Himmler the new leader of his personal bodyguard, the Schutzstaffel (SS). On July 20, 1944, after the attempt to assassinate Hitler, Heinrich Himmler was appointed "Commander in Chief of the Replacement Training Army." Soon after, Himmler then appointed the ruthless SS General Hans Kammler as "Special SS Commissioner for V2 Operations". (V2ROCKET.COM, Spartacus Educational, image: <http://www.angelfire.com/ab5/.../Himmler.jpg>) | |
|
Name: | Hermann Oberth |
| Birth: | 25 June 1894 (Hermannstadt, Transylvania) | |
| Death: | 28 December 1989 | |
| Career: | Is known as one of the three founding father of rocketry and astrounautics, along with Goddard and Tsiolkovsky. In 1923 he published Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen (The Rocket into Planetary Space), which was internationally celebrated as a work of tremendous scientific importance. He became a German citizen in 1940 and in 1941 transferred to the German rocket development centre at Peenemünde, where he worked for Wernher von Braun, his former assistant. (info: Stange, image: SpaceFame) | |
|
Name: | Konstantin Tsiolkovsky |
| Birth: | 17 September 1857 (Ryasan Province, Russia) | |
| Death: | 19 September 1935 | |
| Career: | Is considered to be one of the three founding father of rocketry and astrounautics, along with Oberth and Goddard. He published more than 500 scientific papers from his home in Kaluga, Russia. "He dreamed about the far distant future of humanity, including the eventual conquest of space and our leaving the cradle of the planet Earth for the stars." Even though he never created any rockets himself, he influenced many young Russian engineers and designers. (info/image: Life of...) | |
|
Name: | Walter Thiel |
| Birth: | 2 March 1910 (Prinz, Breslau, now Wroclaw, Poland) | |
| Death: | 17 August 1943 | |
| Career: | Thiel specialized in hyperbolic combinations of rocket propellants and in the design of combustion chambers. Thiel joined the staff at Peenemünde in 1936, where he designed, developed, tested, and perfected a rocket motor producing 56,000 pounds of thrust. Rocket motors at the time could only produce 3,000 pounds of thrust. Walter Thiel was killed in an Allied air raid on Peenemünde on 17 August 1943. (info/image: SpaceFame) |
The Peenemünde Area - the primary V2 development location. (Dornberger).
London/Southern England/Antwerp - locations against which rocket attacks were launched. (http://www.disa.atd.net/projects/global_fiber/imagedir/england.jpg).