Dr. Georg F. von Tiesenhausen (born May 18, 1914) is a retired German-American rocket scientist. After being brought to the United States in 1953 as part of Operation Paperclip, he was part of Wernher von Braun's team at the U.S. Army, and later, NASA. He is credited with the first complete design of the Lunar Rover and made a variety of other contributions to the space program.
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Tiesenhausen was born in Riga, Latvia and graduated from Hamburg University in 1943. After his graduation he was sent to Peenemünde to work at a military research centre.
Tiesenhausen worked with Dr. Wernher von Braun developing V-2 rockets in Germany during World War II. He came to America in 1953 as part of Operation Paperclip, where he again worked with von Braun on guided missiles such as the Redstone, this time for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. He would later be transferred to NASA, where he would work on various spaceflight programs, including the Apollo program which would land men on the Moon. He continued to work for NASA well into the Shuttle era.
Between 1987 and 2010, von Tiesenhausen frequently volunteered at the U.S. Space & Rocket Centerin Huntsville, Alabama, lecturing to students in Space Camp programs about the future of space exploration and other topics.
In 2007, he became one of the original inductees into the Space Camp Hall of Fame.[1] On February 3, 2011, he was presented with the U.S. Space and Rocket Center's Lifetime Achievement Award for Education by Neil Armstrong.[2] "Dr. von T is one of those rare individuals who has a natural ability to inform and inspire, to educate and motivate, and, most remarkably, to endure," Armstrong said. [3]