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Biography of Werner von Braun who developed rockets for the German military in World War II and for the United States military and space programs, written by two men who spent decades working with him.
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Curator and space historian at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum delivers a brilliantly nuanced biography of controversial space pioneer Wernher von Braun. Chief rocket engineer of the Third Reich and one of the fathers of the U.S. space program, Wernher von Braun is a source of consistent fascination. Glorified as a visionary and vilified as a war criminal, he was a man of profound moral complexities, whose intelligence and charisma were coupled with an enormous and, some would say, blinding ambition. Based on new sources, Neufeld's biography delivers a meticulously researched and authoritative portrait of the creator of the V-2 rocket and his times, detailing how he was a man caught between morality and progress, between his dreams of the heavens and the earthbound realities of his life.
Written by veteran aerospace journalist Bob Ward, who spent years investigating his subject, this biography presents a revealing but even-handed portrait of the father of modern rocketry. As he chronicles Werner von Braun's life, Ward explodes many myths and misconceptions about the controversial genius who was a hero to some, a villain to others. The picture of von Braun that emerges is of a brilliant scientist with limitless curiosity and a drive to achieve his goals at almost any price—from developing the world’s first ballistic missile used against the Allies in World War II to helping launch the first U.S. satellite that hurled Americans into space and the Saturn V super-booster that powered them to the moon. Along the way readers are introduced to the human side of this charismatic visionary who brought the United States into the Space Age.
The pilot’s son delivers “a fascinating read and an invaluable insight in to the workings of pre- and wartime test flying under the Third Reich” (Military Aircraft Monthly). On 27 August 1939, Flugkapitan Erich Warsitz became the first man to fly a jet aircraft, the Heinkel He 178, and in June of the same year he flew the first liquid-fuel rocket aircraft, the Heinkel He 176. His legendary flying skills enabled him to assist the pioneering German aircraft and engine design teams that included Wernher von Braun and Ernst Heinkel. He repeatedly risked his life extending the frontiers of aviation in speed, altitude and technology and survived many life-threatening incidents. This book is ...
"An illustrated guide to real and imagined spaceships, and how popular culture influenced the development of each"--Provided by publisher.
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Dieter Huzel was an electronic engineer with his whole career ahead of him when Germany lurched into the Second World War, he was conscripted and destined for the Russian Front when fate intervened. He and many other scientists were re-assigned from combat duty to the top secret installation at Peenemünde Island off the Baltic coast as part of the Nazi search for “Wonder Weapons”. Huzel describes how he became an integral part of the V weapon program which, despite the frequent Allied bombings, produced the feared V-1 and V-2 rockets that rained down on liberated parts of Europe during the later years of the war. As the tide turned against the Nazi regime, Huzel tells of the shifts in production of these weapons to central Germany and his team’s rising fear that the rocket technology would fall into the hands of the Russians. However, Huzel and his team were captured by the West and offered re-location to Britain or America. Huzel and his former director, Werner Von Braun, opted for America where they would become part of the ground-breaking Rocketdyne research team and spearhead of the NASA push for space exploration.