Wernher von Braun

Born March 23, 1912, in Germany

Waldo Lonsbury Semon (September 10, 1898 – May 26, 1999) was a renowned American inventor born in Demopolis, Alabama.

Semon put his name into the history books for inventing vinyl, the world's second-most-used plastic. He found the formula for vinyl by mixing a few synthetic polymers, and the result was a substance that was elastic, but wasn't adhesive. Semon worked on methods of improving rubber, and eventually developed a synthetic substitute. On December 11, 1935, he created Koreosol from salt, coke and limestone, a polymer that could be made in any consistency. Semon made more than 5,000 other synthetic rubber compounds, achieving success with Ameripol (AMERican POLymer) in 1940 for the B.F. Goodrich company. In all, Semon held 116 patents, and was inducted into the Invention Hall of Fame in 1995 at age 97.

Semon is sometimes credited with inventing bubble gum, but this is inaccurate. He did invent an indigestible synthetic rubber substance that could be used as a bubble gum (and produced exceptionally large bubbles), but the product remained a curiosity and was never sold. Semon graduated from the University of Washington earning a B.S. in chemistry and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering.

Wernher von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977), a German rocket physicist and astronautics engineer, became one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the United States. Wernher von Braun is sometimes said to be the preeminent rocket engineer of the 20th century, and he is generally regarded as the father of the United States space program, both for his technical and organizational skills, and for his public relations efforts on behalf of space flight.

In his 20s and early 30s, von Braun was the central figure in Germany's pre-war rocket development program, responsible for the design and realization of the deadly V-2 combat rocket during World War II. After the war, he and some of his rocket team were taken to the United States as part of the then-secret Operation Overcast. In 1950, at the start of the Korean War, von Braun and his team were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, his home for the next 20 years. (In 1955, 10 years after entering the country, von Braun became a naturalized U.S. citizen.)

Between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone rocket, which was used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile tests conducted by the United States.

NASA was established by law on July 29, 1958. One day later, the 50th Redstone rocket was successfully launched from Johnston Atoll in the south Pacific as part of Operation Hardtack. Two years later, NASA opened the new Marshall Space Flight Center at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, and the ABMA development team led by von Braun was transferred to NASA. Presiding from July 1960 to February 1970, von Braun became the center's first Director.

The Marshall Center's first major program was the development of Saturn rockets. From this, the Apollo program for manned moon flights was developed. Wernher von Braun initially pushed for a flight engineering concept that called for an Earth orbit rendezvous technique (the approach he had argued for when building his space station), but in 1962 he converted to the more risky lunar orbit rendezvous concept that was subsequently realized. His dream to help mankind set foot on the Moon became a reality on July 16, 1969, when a Marshall-developed Saturn V rocket launched the crew of Apollo 11 on its historic eight-day mission.

During the late 1960s, von Braun played an instrumental role in the development of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville. The desk from which he guided America's entry in the Space Race remains on display there. Von Braun also was responsible for the creation of the Research Institute at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. As a result of his vision, the university is one of the leading universities in the nation for NASA-sponsored research.