Ernst Stuhlinger

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Ernst Stuhlinger (center) and Wernher von Braun (right) sign the US naturalization certificates (April 14, 1955)

Ernst Stuhlinger (born December 19, 1913 in Niederrimbach ; † May 25, 2008 in Huntsville , Alabama ) was a German-American nuclear physicist and electrical engineering and space scientist . In 1955 he became an American citizen.

Life

Ernst Stuhlinger was born in Niederrimbach in Württemberg (today a district of Creglingen ), where his father worked as a village teacher. In Tübingen he attended high school , then he studied physics, mathematics and zoology in Tübingen, Munich and Königsberg. In 1936 he became Hans Geiger's assistant in physics at the Technical University in Berlin . Stuhlinger 1936 with the 28-page was dissertation cosmic ionizing power This ultra-rays at the University of Tübingen in physics doctorate and was then a researcher at the Technical University of Berlin. Through his research on cosmic rays and nuclear physics , he was involved in German atomic energy research from 1939. After Stuhlinger was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1941, he was transferred to the front in Russia one year later, where in early 1943 he was asked to go to Peenemünde to work on Wernher von Braun's missile program ; qualified specialists were being sought there at the time. He then had to walk more than 1,000 kilometers to the west. This assignment to Peenemünde, according to his own statements, probably saved his life. He dealt there with the development of control and control systems for the missiles. When asked about his work, he later said: “We did not feel that we were developing a weapon of retaliation …. Our goal was a powerful, controllable, high-precision rocket ”. Like many of his employees at the Peenemünde Army Research Center , Stuhlinger later said that no prisoners had worked in the laboratories and workshops. However, there was a concentration camp in Peenemünde from June 1943 .

As one of 126 scientists, Stuhlinger emigrated to the USA after the Second World War (see Operation Paperclip ). At first, Stuhlinger was housed in Fort Bliss , Texas and continued his work on missile development for the US Army . In 1950 he was transferred to Huntsville (Alabama) with Wernher von Braun's team. Under the supervision of the US Army, the development of the Redstone , Jupiter and Pershing rockets began there. After that, the team worked for the NASA rocket program. Stuhlinger was director of the space research center (Space Science Lab) of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville (Alabama) (1960–1968). Stuhlinger was involved in the launch of the first American satellite Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958, as was Alan Shepard's first manned American space flight on May 5, 1961. Until 1975 he was an advisory research director.

After his retirement, Stuhlinger became a professor and senior researcher at the University of Alabama . At the same time he worked on the development of an electric drive for automobiles. During this time he spent a few months at the universities in Munich and Heidelberg to deal with space probes and their electric drives . Especially the development of space gliders, studies and concepts for a manned Mars mission kept him busy. In honor of his life's work in the field of electric drives, the highest award of the Electric Rocket Propulsion Society (ERPS) was named after him: the Stuhlinger Medal (full name: "Ernst Stuhlinger Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Electric Propulsion").

The Antarctic Stuhlinger-Piedmont Glacier is named after him . Since 1983 he has been a corresponding member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences .

useful information

Stuhlinger gained in the construction of Explorer 1 nicknamed "Mr. Apex ”, when he built an electromechanical calculator that was supposed to determine the ignition of the upper stage of the rocket from the ground at exactly the right moment from various measurement signals. The device called the “Apex Predictor” was built in Stuhlinger's garage under great time pressure and from relatively simple components, but it worked perfectly.

Fonts

  • Possibilities of Electrical Space Ship Propulsion , Friedrich Hecht (Ed.), Report on the 5th International Astronautical Congress (Osterreich Gesellschaft für Weltraumforschung, Vienna, 1955).
  • Zs. With Joseph King: Concept for a Manned Mars Expedition with Electrically Propelled Vehicles , Progress in Astronautics, Vol. 9, pp. 647–664, San Diego: Univelt, 1963.
  • With Krafft A. Ehricke , Egmont R. Koch, Hermann-Michael Hahn: Project Viking. The conquest of Mars , Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH, November 1982
  • With Frederick J. Ordway III: Wernher von Braun. Departure into space , Esslingen, 1992.
  • Enabling Technology for Space Transportation . In: The Century of Space Science . 1, 2001, pp. 73-74.
  • Leland F. Belew, Ernst Stuhlinger: Skylab: A Guidebook . National Aeronautics and Space Administration, August 6, 2004, accessed July 5, 2008 .

Web links

Commons : Ernst Stuhlinger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Rainer Eisfeld , Mondsüchtig, Wernher von Braun and the birth of space travel from the spirit of barbarism, Paperback 2012, ISBN 9783866741676 , pp. 95–98
  2. ↑ Oriana Fallaci , When the Sun Dies, paperback, 536 pages, 1993, ISBN 3-423-30364-6 , chapter 22
  3. ↑ Award of the Stuhlinger Medal 2011 ( Memento from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Members of the HAdW since it was founded in 1909. Ernst Stuhlinger. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, accessed June 15, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Interview with Ernst Stuhlinger, 1999 (PDF; 2.4 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Stuhlinger, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American nuclear physicist, electrical engineering and space scientist
DATE OF BIRTH December 19, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederrimbach
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 2008
Place of death Huntsville, Alabama