Wernher von Braun

Wernher von Braun was a German-American aerospace engineer, trained as a physicist, who became the central technical figure of twentieth-century rocketry on both sides of the Second World War. In Nazi Germany he directed rocket development at Peenemunde and designed the V-2, the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile, a program that relied on forced labor from concentration camp prisoners and drew lasting historical scrutiny of his wartime role. Brought to the United States after the war through Operation Paperclip, he designed the Redstone and Jupiter rockets that launched Explorer 1, America's first satellite, in 1958, then joined NASA in 1960 to direct the Marshall Space Flight Center, where he led development of the Saturn V launch vehicle that carried the Apollo missions to the Moon. Beyond his technical work he became a prominent public popularizer of spaceflight through writing and television collaborations with Walt Disney.