Walter Jacobi (January 13, 1918 – August 19, 2009)
was a rocket scientist and member of the "
von Braun rocket group", at
Peenemünde
Peenemünde (, en, " Peene iverMouth") is a municipality on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is part of the ''Amt'' (collective municipality) of Usedom-Nord. The commu ...
(1939–1945) working on the
V-2
The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was develope ...
rockets in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
He was among the scientists to surrender and travel to the United States to provide rocketry expertise via
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...
. He came to the United States on the first boat, November 16, 1945
with
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...
and
Fort Bliss
Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Named in honor of LTC William Bliss (1815–1853), a mathematics professor who was the son-in-law of President Zachary Taylor, Ft. Bliss h ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
(1945–49). He continued his work with the team when they moved to
Redstone Arsenal, and he joined
Marshall Space Flight Center to work for
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
.
He worked on rocket "structure and components."
He continued to support the space program and appear at public events until his death.
References
External links
Walter W. Jacobi Collection, The University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections
German rocket scientists
1918 births
2009 deaths
American aerospace engineers
Early spaceflight scientists
German spaceflight pioneers
Engineers from Thuringia
V-weapons people
Marshall Space Flight Center
NASA people
Operation Paperclip
20th-century American engineers
People from Saalfeld
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