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A German-born rocket-propulsion
engineer who was the chief designer of the Centaur
and who produced many other ideas for the development of space including a space
plane design and a strategy for lunar colonization. As a child, he was
influenced by Fritz Lang’s film Woman in
the Moon and formed a rocket society at age 12. He studied celestial
mechanics and nuclear physics at Berlin Technical University. Injured during
World War II, he was transferred to Peenemünde
where he served as a propulsion engineer from 1942 to 1945. Upon moving to the
United States, he became an American citizen (1954) and during the 1950s with
General Dynamics helped develop the Atlas
missile and then the Centaur upper stage. Later, he carried out advanced studies
at Rockwell International while also working independently on schemes for the
commercialization and colonization of space. His ashes were placed in orbit
aboard the first Celestis flight.
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