Krafft Arnold Ehricke

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Krafft Arnold Ehricke
Krafft Arnold Ehricke
Krafft Arnold Ehricke
Born March 24, 1917
Berlin
Died December 11, 1984

Dr. Krafft Arnold Ehricke (March 24, 1917 - December 11, 1984) was a rocket-propulsion engineer.

Born in Berlin, Ehricke believed in space travel from a very young age, influenced by his viewing of the Fritz Lang film Woman in the Moon. At the age of 12, he formed his own rocket society.

He attended Berlin Technical University and studied celestial mechanics and nuclear physics under such luminaries as Hans Geiger and Werner Heisenberg, attaining his degree in Aeronautical Engineering.

He worked at Peenemuende as propulsion engineer from 1942 to 1945, then went to the United States with other German rocket scientists and technicians under "Operation Paperclip" in 1947 and worked with the Von Braun Rocket Team at Huntsville. (See also German rocket scientists in the US.)

Upon leaving government service Ehricke worked at Bell Aircraft, and then for Convair in 1952. While at Convair, he designed the D-1 Centaur, a high energy, upper-stage-booster that used liquid hydrogen and oxygen as fuel.

Ehricke became friendly with Eugene F. Lally while they worked together at Convair and became his mentor. Ehricke taught Lally celestial mechanics so he could determine available payload capacities for missions to planets and booster energy required.

It has been said that Ehricke and Lally were the creative spark during the pioneering days of the American space program. Their concepts were publicized in the media and caught the fancy of the general public helping to promote space exploration and excite NASA to move forward.

In 1948 Ehricke wrote a book with Wernher von Braun, The Mars Project, which detailed how man could travel to Mars using a ferry system. This ferry system is what we now call the "Space Shuttle". He devoted his life to space exploration and, together with von Braun, was the chief advisor for North America on the Space Shuttle.

The NEXUS reusable rocket was a concept design created in the 1960s by a group at General Dynamics led by Krafft Ehricke.

He proposed a space station Astropolis.

Space Burial in 1997 Ehricke

Ehricke's given name is commonly seen spelled "Kraft".

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