Sundown17, thank you very much. your thoughts are very kind and much appreciated. Interesting about the Gorrard mansion you menyion. He had the Goddard Space Flight Center named after him.
I know much more about Von Braun, who was a brilliant and equally arrogant German Scientist in WWII who is oten thought of as the father of modern rocketry. He was recruited by NASA after the war and built a non-working rocket called Atlas. And non-working Centaur.
After dad worked with him as a young protege of the aging mentor, Von Braun dropped a non-working nemesis of his called the Atlas rocket, which he announced would never fly. It was given to dad and told to make it work. He did - and in the process created the unqique fuel mixture of liquid hydrogen and Liguid oxygen in precise ratio that prevented explosion, yet provided burn - and later lifted the SATURN V and Apollo off the ground with 7 million pounds of thrust ( !!!) to land on the moon.
To this day the Atlas is still in use, being tailored for missions by Lockheed Martin here in Colorado near where I live in Douglas County. Dad and team built the entire Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle, if of any interest to your husband. Is he in Aeronautical Engineering or relared ?
Your husband may be interested in the NASA Glenn Research Center Web-site where the history of that shop has been in documentation , including numerous references to Dad, at what used to be called LERC, Lewis Research Center, when he worked there. Thanks for the kind words. He sure is famous to me. Thanks
geo Steve
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