Krafft Arnold Ehricke
Krafft Arnold Ehricke ( born March 24, 1917 in Berlin, † December 11, 1984 in La Jolla ) was a German -American rocket scientist.
His father, Arnold Ehricke, was a professor of dentistry and oral surgery. His mother, Ruth, was also a practicing dentist, and lived after the divorce in Boston.
Ehricke graduated in 1942 his studies in aeronautical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin from. During the Second World War, he was a prominent member of the rocket development program at Peenemünde. Here he also began his work on future space projects, including human spaceflight and nuclear rocket engines.
In 1947, he came under Operation Paperclip to the U.S., where he continued his work on rockets and space travel. In the early 1950s he became a member of the newly formed Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation (later General Dynamics ) Astronautics Division. He was beteiligt.1954 in the development of the successful Atlas missile Krafft Ehricke U.S. citizen.
In 1959 he was appointed director of the Centaur program. In 1974, as chief scientist at the North American Rockwell Space Systems Division, he developed concepts of interplanetary and interstellar space travel and of extraction on the Moon and Mars.
He died in 1984 in La Jolla from leukemia. Part of his ashes were brought into orbit in the first space burial 1997.
He was married to Ingeborg, with whom he had three daughters. His widow founded in 1985, the Krafft A. Ehricke Institute for Space Development.
Works (selection)
- Krafft A. Ehricke: Space Flight, Volume 1: Environment and Celestial Mechanics, Van Nostrand Reinhold (1962 )
- Krafft A. Ehricke: Space Flight, Volume 2: Dynamics, Van Nostrand Reinhold (1962 )
- Krafft A. Ehricke: Future missions, New York Academy of Sciences ( 1965)
- Krafft A. Ehricke, Betty A. Miller: Exploring the planets, Little, Brown (1969 )