Rudolf Schlidt

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Rudolf Schlidt in 1955, second from right, seated with Wernher von Braun and other members of the Project Orbiter committee that laid the foundation for the Juno I rocket.

Rudolf Karl Hans Schlidt (born July 15, 1914 in Goch ; † September 28, 2012 in Huntsville , Alabama ) was a German-American engineer and space pioneer .

Life

Rudolf was born on July 15, 1914 in Goch in the Rhine Province . He studied at the Friedrichs-Polytechnikum , a technical college in Köthen . After completing his intermediate diploma in 1939, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. After being wounded at the front, Schlidt joined Wernher von Braun's team as an engineer and worked in the Peenemünde a . a. on the thrusters of the Aggregate 4 rocket. Another area of ​​application for Schlidt was research on heat-resistant materials. During this time he married Dorothea Kersten, Wernher von Braun's secretary, with whom he has four children.

Towards the end of the war, Rudolf Schlidt worked at Mittelwerk GmbH near Kohnstein in the production of the V2.

After the Second World War , Schlidt and a large number of other German missile specialists came to Fort Bliss in the USA as part of Operation Paperclip and later on to Huntsville, Alabama, where he lived with his family in the German settlement on Monte Sano.

Kurt Lindner Wilhelm Jungert Kurt Debus Eduard Fischel Hans Gruene Willi Mrazek ? Helmut Schlitt Herbert Axster Theodor Vowe Rudolf Beichel Bruno Helm Oscar Holderer Rudolf Minning Hans Friedrich Guenther Haukohl Friedrich Dhom Bernhard Tessmann Karl Heimburg Ernst Geissler Friedrich Duerr ? Hans Milde Hannes Lührsen Kurt Patt Otto Eisenhardt Johann Tschinkel Gerhard Drawe Gerhard Heller Josef Maria Boehm Joachim Mühlner Arthur Rudolph Wilhelm Angele Erich Ball Bruno Heusinger Max Nowak Fritz Müller Alfred Finzel Herbert Fuhrmann Ernst Stuhlinger Herbert Guendel Hans Fichtner Karl Hager Werner Kuers Hans Maus Herbert Bergeler Walter Hans Schwidetzky Rudolf Hoelker Erich Kaschig Werner Rosinski Heinz Schnarowski Fritz Vandersee Arthur Urbanski Werner Tiller Hugo Woerdemann Martin Schilling Albert Schuler Hans Lindenmayer Helmut Zolke Hans Paul Heinrich Rothe Ludwig Roth Ernst Steinhoff Gerhard Reisig Ernst Klaus Hermann Weidner Hermann Lange Robert Paetz Helmut Merk Walter Jacobi Dieter Grau Friedrich Schwarz Wernher von Braun Albin Wittmann Otto Hoberg Wilhelm Schulze ? Adolf Thiel Walter Wiesemann Theodor Buchhold Eberhard Rees Otto Heinrich Hirschler Theodor Poppel Werner Voss Gustav Kroll Anton Beier Albert Zeiler Rudolf Schlidt Wolfgang Steurer Gerd De Beek Heinz Millinger Konrad Dannenberg Hans Palaoro Erich Neubert Werner Sieber Emil Hellebrandt Hans Henning Hosenthien Oscar Bauschinger Joseph Michel Klaus Scheufelen Walter Burose Karl Fleischer Werner Gengelbach Hermann Beduerftig Guenther Hintze
The Project Paperclip team at Fort Bliss. (by moving the mouse pointer over the faces, the names are shown)

He worked at the Redstone Arsenal in 1949 and later in close collaboration with the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station . At the beginning of the fifties, the considerations within the American missile program that one could use the missiles under development for the launch of a satellite became more concrete. In June 1954 the President of the Office of Naval Research , Commander George W. Hoover called a meeting to include: a. with Wernher von Braun, Ernst Stuhlinger , Gerhard Heller and Rudolf Schlidt, where the concrete plan for the construction of the first American satellite was discussed. Rudolf Schlidt was a key project manager on the USA's first artificial satellite called Explorer 1 .

In 2008, Rudolf Schlidt was awarded the " 50th Anniversary of America in Space " together with other rocket pioneers - Oscar Holderer , Georg von Tiesenhausen , Konrad Dannenberg , Walter Jacobi , Walter Häussermann , Hans Fichtner - with a plaque from the Marshall Space Flight Center honored.

Publications

  • with Fritz K. Pauli: Tethered hovering platform for aerial surveillance. Patent pending 1961, published 1965
  • Device for mixing media capable of flowing. Patent pending 1969, published 1971

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ University of Alabama: Transplanted Rocket Pioneers. (PDF) 2015, p. 167 , accessed on October 24, 2015 (English).
  2. ↑ Lee Roop: Von Braun 'Paperclip' team member Rudolf Schlidt dies in Huntsville . Alabama Media Group, Oct. 1, 2012.
  3. ↑ Michael B. Petersen: Missiles for the Fatherland - Peenemünde, National Socialism, and the V-2 Missile. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-28340-3 , p. 184.
  4. ^ The Huntsville Historical Review , Volume 34, Number 1, Winter-Spring 2009, p. 80.
  5. ^ George H. Ludwig: Opening Space Research: Dreams, Technology, and Scientific Discovery. American Geophysical Union, Washington DC 2011, ISBN 0-87590-733-4 .
  6. ↑ America honors the last of the German rocketeers. Houston Chronicle January 31, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Schlidt, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schlidt, Rudolf Karl Hans (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American engineer and space pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Goch
DATE OF DEATH September 28, 2012
Place of death Huntsville , Alabama