Rocket Age: The Race to the Moon and What It Took to Get There by George D. Morgan

Author:George D. Morgan [Morgan, George D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781633886377
Google: k9LVDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1633886360
Barnesnoble: 1633886360
Goodreads: 48850813
Published: 2021-03-22T16:57:06+00:00

20

DEATH OF A DREAMER

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.

—John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy wanted to personally inspect how his “before this decade is out” project was progressing. On September 11, 1962, he decided to visit the Marshall Space Flight Center to take a tour of the facilities and inspect some hardware. There was only one individual with the knowledge and charisma to act as tour guide for such a VIP, and that was Marshall’s new director, Wernher von Braun. As the men and their entourages walked through the facilities, von Braun was gleeful in his description of how the president’s dream was coming to fruition. Though they had been on opposite sides during the war, Kennedy and von Braun soon formed a close bond.

During the tour, von Braun showed the president a small-scale model of the Saturn rocket that would one day send men to the Moon. “This is the vehicle,”

he said, “which is designed to fulfill your promise to put a man on the Moon by the end of this decade. By God, we will do it!” The tour put Kennedy in such an upbeat mood that he decided to alter von Braun’s schedule, attaching him to his entourage as he moved on to his next stop at Cape Canaveral. With von Braun in the audience, the president spoke to the engineers and technicians, promising them, “We will be first!” Von Braun’s enthusiasm was, if anything, quite contagious.1

Kennedy returned to Washington and the drudgery of the work of politics, but he could not stay away from the excitement of the space program he had minted. Eight months later, in May 1963, Kennedy was back at the 1 1 2

D E A T H O f A D R E A M E R

Marshall Space Flight Center to observe a static test of the Saturn booster stage. Ensconced close to the test stand in a concrete bunker—as close as any human was allowed—the president of the United States stood in awe as a volcano of fire poured from the nozzles of the engines in an ear-pounding, ground-shaking, earthquake-like roar. The immense power of the engines took Kennedy by surprise, and all he could do was gape. When it was over, he shook von Braun’s hand and exclaimed, “If I could only show all of this to the people of Congress!”2

On the morning of November 22, von Braun was on a NASA plane flying back to Huntsville. He had just finished testifying before Congress about the progress of the country’s lunar program. In his pocket was an invitation to a White House reception that he and his wife Maria were looking forward to.

President Kennedy wanted to talk some more about the space program, and von Braun was always happy to oblige. During the flight the news came over the radio: the president had been assassinated.

The funeral was held three days later, but Wernher was so distressed, he could not bring himself to attend. In his office in Huntsville, he and his secretary, Bonnie Holmes, watched the funeral on TV.

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