Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braunwas a German, later American, aerospace engineer and space architect credited with inventing the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany and the Saturn V for the United States. He was one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany, where he was a member of the Nazi Party and the SS. Following World War II, he was moved to the United States, along with about 1,500 other scientists, technicians, and engineers,...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth23 March 1912
CityWyrzysk, Poland
CountryGermany
Wernher von Braun quotes about
If we continue at this leisurly pace, we will have to pass Russian customs when we land on the moon.
It takes sixty-five thousand errors before you are qualified to make a rocket.
The best computer is a man, and it’s the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
With our present knowledge, we can respond to the challenge of stellar space flight solely with intellectual concepts and purely hypothetical analysis. Hardware solutions are still entirely beyond our reach and far, far away.
My friends they were dancing here in the streets of Huntsville when our first satellite orbited the Earth. They were dancing again when the first Americans landed on the Moon. I'd like to ask you, don't hang up your dancing slippers.
A good engineer gets stale very fast if he doesn't keep his hands dirty.
The first men who set out for Mars had better make sure they leave everything at home in apple-pie order. They won't get back to earth for more than two and a half years. The difficulties of a trip to mars are formidable. . . . What curious information will these first explorers carry back from Mars? Nobody knows-and its extremely doubtful that anyone now living will ever know. All that can be said with certainty today is this: the trip will be made, and will be made . . . someday.
One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions.
In 1492 Columbus knew less about the far Atlantic than we do about the heavens, yet he chose not to sail with a flotilla of less than three ships. . . . So it is with interplanetary exploration: it must be done on the grand scale.
I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.
If we were to start today on an organized and well-supported space program I believe a practical passenger rocket can be built and tested within ten years.
Everybody knows what the moon is, everybody knows what this decade is, and everybody can tell a live astronaut who returned from the moon from one who didn't
In order for us to use the very best judgment possible in spending the taxpayer's money intelligently, we just have to do a certain amount of this research and development work ourselves. We just have to keep our own hands dirty to command the professional respect of the contractor personnel engaged with actual design, shop and testing work.
By the year 2000 we will undoubtedly have a sizable operation on the Moon, we will have achieved a manned Mars landing and it's entirely possible we will have flown with men to the outer planets.