Ward - Dr. Space

DR. SPACE

DR. SPACE

The Life of Wernher von Braun

BOB WARD

Foreword by

John Glenn

NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

The latest edition of this work has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2005 by R. J. (Bob) Ward

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Naval Institute Press paperback edition 2009.

ISBN 978-1-61251-404-8 (eBook)

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Ward, Bob, 1934

Dr. Space : the life of Wernher von Braun / Bob Ward ; foreword by John Glenn.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Von Braun, Wernher, 19121977. 2. RocketryUnited StatesBiography.

3. RocketryGermanyBiography. I. Title: Doctor Space. II. Title.

TL781.85.V6W35 2005

621.4356092dc22

2005002561

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Interior design and composition: Alcorn Publication Design

Dedicated to the memory of my Father,
Robinson Jester Ward, who was,
and perhaps remains, my Muse
in the robust appreciation of Humor
in this tragicomedy we call Life

Contents

M y most memorable recollection of Wernher von Braun goes back to when we first met. It is my view that if there is one thing that people of large accomplishment have in common it is that they are not limited to just one particular area of expertise. Most such people are not unidimensional. They are curious about everything around them, about how to do or design or make things better, in whatever area that may be.

Back when the first seven of us astronauts were selected in the Project Mercury days, one of the early things we did was start going to Huntsville, Alabama. That was the first time I met Wernher. He was quite well known then, of course, but none of us seven had ever met him. We were in and out of Huntsville every few weeks for two or three years, and we got to know Wernher and all of his top people.

On one of our earliest visits he invited the seven of us to his home on the hill. He had a little library in his home. We were having drinks, and when I walked into his library I fully expected to see shelves full of books on mathematics and rockets and engineering and subjects like that, because he was known for his expertise in those areas. But I was surprised to find his library contained maybe even more books on religion and comparative religion and philosophy and geography and geology and politics and a whole realm of subjects.

That did surprise me. I even mentioned it to him right there, and he just pulled a book from his library and started talking about it. He particularly loved to talk about religion and philosophy. That is something he had in common with other people of great accomplishment, that curiosity about everything around him.

In speeches I have used that exampleof what I found the first time we ever went to von Brauns hometo illustrate the point that this is a characteristic of most such people. He was just as curious about matters of religion and politics and philosophy and government as he was interested in how to build a better rocket.

John Glenn

Some of us fall by the wayside,

Some of us soar to the stars...

Tim Rice, The Circle of Life,

sung by Elton (Rocket Man) John

W ernher von Braun was a rocket scientist, the most famoussome would say infamousof them all, the man who led the engineering and scientific teams that were most responsible for giving rise to that still-familiar expression, You dont have to be a rocket scientist to know that...

At times, most of us ponder the unknowable meaning of life, or at least the meaning, if any, of our own lives. From boyhood on, von Braun knew the meaning and purpose of his life: to develop and build the rockets that would enable humanity to explore space, to go to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond. On two continents, through cycles of peace and war and Cold War, he lived his lifes dream and made it a reality. He did so at a sometime lethal price along the way. He did so even though he needed deathbed reassurance that the space glories achieved had been worth the pricethat he and his Old Country and New World colleagues had done the right thing in using the military as the means to their end.

Beyond his burning drive and opportunistic flair, what was Wernher von Braun like as a human being? Some who knew him well view him as a space age renaissance man whose intellectual interests and personal pursuits seemed as diverse and as vast as the universe. They say his enviable human qualitiesa sense of fairness and of compassion, an unbridled joie de vivre, uncommon powers as a speaker and listener and retainer of information, an ability to make the fullest use of his timewere as vital to his success as were his technical brilliance and leadership prowess. And some say, genius or not, he was light-years away from perfection.

In speeches and letters during the push toward lunar triumph, von Brauns ringing recruitment cry was: Come join us! Were going to the Moon! He believed that if man ever stopped exploring the unknown, he would cease to be man. He believed that in exploring the cosmos, man would find... himself. A perhaps surprisingly religious man, he believed every man and woman, of whatever faith, owes a final accounting to the Creator for what he or she does with the precious gift of life.

Edward G. Uhl, a U.S. Army engineering officer in World War II, inventor of the antitank bazooka rocket, and later founder of an aerospace company, came to know and admire von Braun and ultimately to recruit him for the corporate world. At the 1993 Von Braun Exploration Forum in Huntsville, Alabama, Uhl observed:

[Von Braun] was indeed a scientist, a rocket engineer, a teacher, an astronomerthe list goes on. And he was a leader.... People wanted to follow him.... When we won World War II, we got no territory, we got no ships, no factories, no gold, no war spoils. We got one very important asset. We got a team of 117 professional scientists and engineers, led by a pied piper, Wernher von Braun. And that team helped the United States become the space leader of the world.

I began writing about Wernher von Braun in 1957, shortly after joining the staff of the Huntsville (Alabama) Times, and continued to cover him and his team, as a reporter, editorial page writer-editor, and correspondent for national technical and trade publications, until his death in 1977. We became acquainted in a workaday way early on in that span of two decades. Between 1979 and the late 1990s, nearly a dozen books were published about von Braun and his rocket team. Some, written by unabashed admirers, portrayed von Braun in a most favorable light; others, by acknowledged critics, presented dark interpretations of his place in history. But none had dealt fully with the total man: not only the professional figure, but also the personality, the character, the human side of this complex man.