As the father of Germany's V-2 rocket Wernher von Braun was also the father of modern rocket science. After surrendering to the Americans in the closing days of the war, Braun went on to direct the major phase of the U.S.' development of rockets and missiles as weapons and for the purposes of space exploration.

Born of an aristocratic family in Wirsitz, Germany, Braun early on showed a great interest in science, particularly astronomy, which his parents encouraged. Nevertheless, Braun proved to be an indifferent student and was deficient in particular in physics and mathematics, the core subjects of rocketry. In 1925, however, the young man experienced an epiphany when he read Hermann Oberth's (1894-1989) Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space), a visionary book many consider to be the foundation of all modern rocket science. Unable to decipher Oberth's mathematics, Braun threw himself into the subject and soon leaped to the head of his class in mathematics as well as physics. On graduation, he was accepted for enrollment at the prestigious Berlin Institute of Technology and, while a student there, he joined the German Society for Space Travel in 1930. He became a protege and friend of Oberth, whom he assisted in early experiments with liquidfuel rocket motors.

After graduating from the institute in 1932, he enrolled in Berlin University and continued his work with the German Society for Space Travel. Up to this time, Braun had not envisaged rockets being used as weapons. However, with the society acutely short of funding, he accepted a research grant from the ordnance department of the Reichswehr (the 100,000-man German army allowed under terms of the Treaty of Versailles). Under the sponsorship of Capt. Walter R. Dornberger, the ordnance department officer in charge of solid-fuel rocket research, Braun began liquid-fuel rocket research at the Kummersdorf Army Proving Grounds outside of Berlin. He integrated this work--on 300- and 660-pound-thrust rocket engines--into his doctoral thesis and in 1934 received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Berlin. . .

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