Wernher von Braun

Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun was a visionary aerospace engineer whose complex career bridged Nazi Germany's ballistic missile program and NASA's Apollo lunar landings. Inspired by Hermann Oberth and science fiction, von Braun became technical director of the Peenemünde Army Research Center at age twenty-five, developing the liquid-propellant V-2 ballistic rocket—the first human artifact to breach the boundary of space (the Kármán line) in 1944.

Surrendering to American forces at the end of World War II under Operation Paperclip, von Braun moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where he led the development of the Redstone rocket that launched America's first satellite, Explorer 1, and first astronaut, Alan Shepard. As director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, von Braun designed the colossal, 363-foot-tall Saturn V super heavy-lift rocket, which flew thirteen flawless missions with zero fatalities, successfully placing twelve astronauts on the lunar surface.