Dr Wernher von Braun (1912-77), German-American rocket pioneer, in 1958. The son of a German minister and a baron, he was educated at Zurich and Berlin Institutes of Technology. He started work on rocket design in 1932, becoming technical head of the German Peenemunde research centre in 1938 where he was responsible for the development of the V-2 rocket. At the end of the war, von Braun surrendered to the American army. He became a leading figure in the American space programme, designing the first US satellite launcher (Jupiter) in the year this photograph was taken and overseeing the design of the Saturn rocket in the 1960s.