Jesco von Puttkamer Goddard Engineering Colloquium Announcement

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, October 22, 2012 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Jesco von Puttkamer

"Thunder over Huntsville: Memories of Saturn, Apollo, and the Moon"

ABSTRACT -- On April 12, 1961, Cosmonaut Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin became the first human to fly into space. His flight triggered tremendous acclaim in Russia and around the world. The U.S. Congress "went berserk", as Robert C. Seamans, NASA's first Associate Administrator, aptly expressed it later.

On May 24, the President Kennedy set the goal of reaching the Moon: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth."

The task of producing the giant rocket for the Lunar Landing fell to a group of engineers in Huntsville, Alabama, where rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun was Director of NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. Thus began the legendary decade that became known as the "Von Braun Era". Huntsville became the birthplace of space rockets of ever-increasing size and power, progressing from the initial Redstone missile of the U.S. Army to NASA’s stunningly successful Saturn family of large vehicles for piloted flight.

This presentation reviews, from a personal vantage point, some memorable highlights, political decisions, private impressions, and recollections of those legendary years in Huntsville which provided the foundation of the U.S. space program as we know it today, and which set the stage for the coming exciting space exploration ventures.

SPEAKER -- Dr. Jesco von Puttkamer is a Space Scientist/Engineer and Program Manager at NASA Headquarters working on the completion and operation of the International Space Station (ISS). He has responsibility for HQ oversight and performance evaluation of daily ISS on-orbit operations as well as Russian activities and the Russian ISS segment, Dr. von Puttkamer is also involved in NASA’s new Moon/Mars Exploration Program.

Von Puttkamer studied General and Aerospace Engineering and Technology at the Technical University in Aachen, Germany. obtaining the equivalent of an MS and graduating with top grades. While still a student, inspired by the successful launch of Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin's flight, and President Kennedy's call to go to the Moon, he contacted Werner von Braun. At von Braun's invitation, he joined the rocket team in Huntsville, arriving in 1962.

He spent the next 12 years at MSFC, working with the Marshall team on Saturn/Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz (ASTP) and advanced planning for a space shuttle, space station and manned Mars expeditions, today known as the "von Braun Paradigm". before he transferred to NASA Headquarters in 1974.

In 1967, he became a US citizen. In 1974, he transferred to NASA Headquarters, where he served in the Office of Space Flight (and in its successors.) He also worked on the writing of Pioneering the Space Frontier (the "Paine Report") and on the "Ride Report".

He has received a NASA Exceptional Performance Award, for his analysis work preparing for future programs, and a NASA Cooperative External Achievement Award, for his work connecting NASA with the public and with outside agencies.

Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov