Todays last landing of the space shuttle Atlantis, and the ending and retirement of the space shuttle fleet,signals the end of an Era in manned space flight in the USA.
I feel obliged to bring to your attention, the man who put the the USA at the forfront of THE SPACE RACE, and put the first man on the moon, and was the brains and driving force of NASA, that would result ultimately in the shuttle programme, the construction of the space station, and the Hubble telescope.
Who was He, and what was his background ? Well his name was Wernher von Braum, he was a German soldier, scientist, who attained the rank of Sturbannfuher in the SS, he was one of the leading figures in the development of Rocket technology in the NAZI regime, developing the V2 weapon, the first ICBM.
He and his team of German scientists, were captured near the end of ww2 and taken to the USA, there they escaped the war trials, and Von Braun, the former NAZI officer, was put in charge of the space programme, set up by president kennedy, He and his team of former NAZI scientists designed and built the SATURN V rocket which took men to the moon in July 1969, I was 7yo, my father insisted on wakening me up, to view the looner landing, I am glad he did, and now 42 years later its over, and some of our thanks, if not all must go to,Wernher von Braun, German SS officer.