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Wernher Von Braun
Von Braun was born on March 23, 1912 in Wirsitz, Germany and died on June 16, 1977 in Alexandria, Virginia of cancer.
Von Braun was a founding member of the German Rocket Society. When Hitler came to power he contineued to work on his rocket projects, and eventually ended up with other German rocket experts at Peenemunde, where they worked on the V-2. After the end of the war, Von Braun and other experts fled to the west and were captured by the Americans (while several other German scientists were captured and brought into Russia.)
Von Braun worked on the US space program, but his views for a space station, rather than a manned landing on the moon, fell by the wayside when the Russians beat the Americans into space in 1957.
Von Braun was quite popular in the United States, although controversy about his responsiblity for the slave laborers at Peenemunde dogged him. (Isaac Asimov, for example, would not shake his hand.)
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