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Author's popularity: 3
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Popularity: 1
Vote: | Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go - and he'll do plenty well when he gets there. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | For my confirmation, I didn't get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys. I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | It will free man from the remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass-produced with unskilled labor. |
Popularity: 5
Vote: | Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program - your tax-dollar will go further. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming. |
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Biography
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Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (March 23 1912 – June 16 1977) was a German scientist and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the United States. Before and during the Second World War, he worked on Germany's rocket program and made remarkable achievements. He led the development of the V-1 and V-2. At the end of WW2 he entered the United States through a then-secret effort named Operation Paperclip. There, he worked the US ICBM program and later (upon that agency's creation) for NASA. Today, he is regarded as the "father" of the United States space program.
Early life
He was born in Wirsitz, East Prussia (now Wyrzysk, Poland). Upon his Lutheran confirmation, his mother gave him a telescope. His interest in astronomy and the realm of space motivated him all his life. When Wirsitz became part of Poland in 1920, due to the Treaty of Versailles, his family, like many other German families, moved. The von Brauns found a new life in Berlin. He did not do well in physics and mathematics until he acquired a copy of the book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) by rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth. From then on he applied himself at school in order to understand mathematics, until he excelled. At the age of 16, he caused a major disruption when he fired off a toy wagon to which he had attached a number of firecrackers. The young von Braun was taken into custody by the local police until his father came to collect him. He had 3 children, Iris, Magrit and Peter. His wife was called Maria Von Quis Von Braun.
In 1930, he attended the Berlin Institute of Technology. He also joined the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR - "Spaceflight Society") and assisted Hermann Oberth in liquid-fueled rocket motor tests. He received his degree there and entered postgraduate studies at Berlin University.
...(more on Wikipedia)
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wernher von Braun".
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