Word: wernher
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Hitler's personal attention, but Hitler's blessing proved only a curse. Impossible production schedules were set for the V2, driving Von Braun to the point of resigning. Nazidom's power-grabbers began fighting for control of the weapon Hitler had approved, and in February 1944, Wernher von Braun was jailed by Heinrich Himmler's black-shirted SS because he declined to connive in putting the Peenemünde project under SS control instead of army control. Only after Dornberger convinced Hitler himself that the V-2 program would collapse immediately without Von Braun...
...insistent: "Sixty days." General Medaris settled it: "Ninety days." Neil McElroy remembered the Army's promise (for that matter the Army, with constant pleas for a stake in space, did not give him a chance to forget), and two weeks after taking office he made his decision. Wernher von Braun heard about it when Medaris' voice came over his Redstone squawk box. "Wernher," said Medaris...
...first time, Wernher von Braun's reach for the stars was accepted as more science than science fiction. In the summer of 1954 Von Braun and a dozen other space enthusiasts from the services and industry gathered in the Washington office of Lieut. Commander George Hoover, U.S.N., to talk about launching a satellite. Von Braun proposed to slam a 5-lb. chunk of metal into orbit with the brute force of a souped-up Redstone; the Office of Naval Research kicked in $88,000 for work on an instrumented satellite, and Project Orbiter was born. It was shortlived...
...Wernher von Braun and his rocket team, the world's most experienced, were specifically ordered to forget about satellite work. They did no such thing, and neither did their U.S. Army bosses. The Von Braun team had been authorized to develop the Army's Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missile as a competitor of the Air Force's Thor-and Von Braun said he needed test vehicles to iron out some of the problems. He wangled permission to build twelve Jupiter-Cs-actually, almost the same jazzed-up Redstones with which he had proposed to put a small...
General Medaris therefore had no choice but to call Von Braun. "Wernher," said he, "I must put you under direct orders personally to inspect that fourth stage to make sure it is not live." Without a satellite, Jupiter-C flew 3,300 miles-farther than any U.S. missile before or since. Wernher von Braun knew then that he could surely launch a satellite-if given the chance...