Inspirational Thoughts

Dr. Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) was one of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration in the twentieth century and one of the most controversial people. Braun was a member of the Nazi Party and an SS officer, yet was also arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 for careless remarks he made about the war and the rocket. His responsibility for the crimes connected to rocket production is controversial. After WW2. In 1960, President Eisenhower transferred his rocket development center at Redstone Arsenal from the Army to the newly established National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Its primary objective was to develop giant Saturn rockets. Accordingly, von Braun became director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that would propel Americans to the Moon. At Marshall, the group continued work on the Redstone-Mercury, the rocket that sent the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, on a suborbital flight