Wernher von Braun

Whener von Braun in his office (Wikipidia)

Wernher von Braun was a rocket scientist and loved experimenting with rockets as a child. He was born in 1912 and died in 1977; he was 65 years old when he died. He played a tremendous part in the V-2 rocket of World War II. He lived and was raised in Wirsitz, Germany which is now Wirsitz, Poland.

The United States of America helped him because they brought him into the country. Von Braun helped the United States by creating the Explorer I and the Saturn V rockets that brought Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon. Von Braun's team developed the four-stage rocket that launched the Explorer I. They launched the flight of America's first astronaut Alan B. Shepard in 1961.

In 1944, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi secret police, tried to take over the German rocket program. He arrested von Braun, who refused to cooperate with the Nazis. Adolf Hitler freed him later that year but in 1945 von Braun led a group of German scientists who surrendered to the U.S. Army in exchange for a safe escape from Nazi Germany.

Von Braun never gave up on his dream to build bigger and better rockets!