Oberth, Hermann

 Hermann Oberth (1894-1989), a German rocket scientist who in 1923 wrote Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) that first described the basic principles of spaceflight. Along with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Robert Goddard, Oberth is considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry and astronautics. He promoted space travel in the 1930s, and joined his former student Wernher von Braun at the V2 rocket complex near Peenemünde, Germany, developing a rocket for the German army during World War II. After the war, Oberth joined von Braun at the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Alabama, and later returned to Germany to continue writing on rocketry and space travel.