Wernher von Braun's NASA Office: Space Headquarters

John Williams shows Wernher von Braun's NASA office and all his rocket models and where he developed the US Space Program. Dr. von Braun was the genius behind rocket science and development in Germany in WW2 and led the US space program to send Apollo astronauts to the Moon. His office is housed at the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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Space Intelligence shares fun facts and excitement about space history, current space missions and future space exploration. John Williams is an avid fan and young space historian. His videos are designed to educate others to learn more about space history and technology.

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Link: US Army
Wernher von Braun was born in Wirsitz, Germany, (now Wyrzysk, Poland) on 23 March 1912. He earned his bachelor's degree at the age of 20 from the University of Berlin, where he also received his doctorate in physics in 1934. Between 1932 and 1937, Von Braun was employed by the German Ordnance Department. He became technical director of the Peenemuende Rocket Center in 1937, where the V-2 rocket was developed. Near the end of World War II, he led more than 100 of his rocket team members to surrender to the Allied powers.

Von Braun came to the United States in September 1945 under contract with the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps as part of Operation Paperclip. He worked on high altitude firings of captured V-2 rockets at White Sands Proving Ground until he became project director of the Ordnance Research and Development Division Sub-Office (Rocket) at Fort Bliss, Texas. On 28 October 1949, the Secretary of the Army approved the transfer of the Fort Bliss group to Redstone Arsenal. After his arrival in Huntsville in April 1950, Von Braun was appointed Director of Development Operations. He continued in this position under the newly formed Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA).

Major ABMA development projects under Von Braun's technical direction included the REDSTONE rocket, the JUPITER Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), and the PERSHING missile. He and his team of German scientists and engineers were also responsible for developing the JUPITER C Reentry Test Missile and launching the Free World's first scientific earth satellite, EXPLORER I.

On 1 July 1960, Von Braun and his team were transferred to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and became the nucleus of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center at Redstone Arsenal. He served as Director of the Marshall Center until February 1970 when he moved to NASA Headquarters to serve as Deputy Associate Administrator. On 1 July 1972, Von Braun left NASA to become Vice President of Engineering and Development for Fairchild Industries in Germantown, Maryland. Von Braun was inducted into the Ordnance Corps Hall of Fame in 1973. He retired in January 1977 due to ill health and died on 16 June 1977.

NASA
Marshall Space Flight Center’s Central Laboratory and Office Building or simply Building 4200 is the hub for the Center’s administrative functions. The building is an eleven story, curtain-wall structure that was designed by the Fort Worth, Texas architectural firm Wyatt C. Hendrick and completed in 1963. Since its completion, it has housed every Marshall center director including its first, Dr. Wernher von Braun. Building 4200 continues to serve as the center of the Marshall Administrative Complex.

The history of Building 4200 reaches back to the first few years of Marshall Space Flight Center. The transfer of the rocket group from the Army Ballistic Missile Agency to NASA in 1960 brought with it several logistical and administrative challenges. However, it was the lack of administrative workspace for the Saturn Program that created a near crisis in the early period of the Center’s history. Following the Marshall Center’s formal establishment on July 1, 1960, the new NASA center found itself in need of office space for basic center operations. Dr. von Braun enlisted the help of Alabama Senator Lister Hill and Congressman Robert E. Jones in gaining appropriation from Congress for the facility. In a letter to von Braun dated July 7, 1960, Senator Hill stated how glad he was that funding for the “badly needed” building was made available. While adequate facilities and offices were being planned and constructed, Marshall employees were temporarily located in the Twickenham and Quick buildings in downtown Huntsville. Army buildings 4484 and 4488 (Army Ballistic Missile Agency Headquarters Building) on Redstone Arsenal were also rented by Marshall until the new facilities could be completed.