Portal:Space exploration/Biography/Week 34 2007

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Frank Joseph Malina (October 2, 1912 in Brenham, Texas- November 9, 1981 in Boulogne Billancourt (France) was an American aeronautical engineer and painter, especially known for becoming both a pioneer in the art world and the realm of scientific engineering. His father came from Bohemia. His formal education began with a degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University in 1934.

In 1935, while a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Malina persuaded Professor of Aeronautics Theodore von Kármán to allow him to pursue studies into rocketry and rocket propulsion. The formal goal was development of a sounding rocket. He and five associates (including Jack Parsons) became known at Caltech as the "suicide squad" because of their experiments (and failures) when testing rocket motor designs.

By late 1945, at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico the project's Wac Corporal sounding rocket was the first rocket to break the 50-mile altitude mark, becoming the first sounding rocket to reach space.