Dr. Space

Wernher von Braun, the father of modern rocketry, is a hero to some and villain to others, and the many books written about him are either bitterly critical or adoring. This biography is neither. After seven years of investigation, veteran aerospace journalist Bob Ward has rejected the extremes and presents a revealing, even-handed portrait of the onetime Nazi Party member who brought the United States into the Space Age. As it chronicles von Braun’s life, the book explodes many myths and misconceptions about this controversial genius. From the young German aristocrat’s leadership role in the development of the world’s first ballistic missile—the infamous V-2 rocket—to his successes in the United States after the war, a picture of von Braun emerges as a brilliant scientist with limitless curiosity and a drive to achieve his goals at almost any price. Yet the author’s lengthy research reveals that the apolitical von Braun accepted nominal Party membership and an essentially honorary SS commission only under heavy pressure, and that his connections to the notorious V-2 slave labor factory were largely peripheral. Ward sheds new light on von Braun’s extraordinary contributions to launching the first U.S. satellite, hurling the first American astronauts into space, and winning the`Moon race’ with the Saturn V super-booster that powered Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, and their successors to the lunar surface. But the author does not shy away from revealing facts about the space leader’s humiliating final years with NASA in the nation’s capital and his long battle with cancer. Along the way, readers are introduced to the human side of this charismatic visionary who mesmerized audiences across the country. The author devoted more than ten years of research and conducted more than a hundred interviews with von Braun’s colleagues to complete this behind-the-scenes biography that looks into the stories, heroics, and contradictions of an enigmatic man. Former editor of The Huntsville (Alabama) Times, BOB WARD has written extensively about space since 1957. He covered the von Braun rocket team for years as a reporter and as a correspondent to technical and trade periodicals in New York.