Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger | |
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.jpg) Stuhlinger in 1962 | |
| Born | (1913-12-19)December 19, 1913 Niederrimbach, Germany |
| Died | May 25, 2008(2008-05-25) (aged 94) Huntsville, Alabama, United States |
| Nationality | German, American |
| Spouse | Irmgard Lotze Stuhlinger |
| Children | Tilman, ofTucson, Arizona, and Christoph, ofMonticello, Arkansas; and a daughter, Susanne Schmidt ofHeidenheim, Germany. |
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Ernst Stuhlinger (December 19, 1913 – May 25, 2008) was a German-American atomic, electrical, and rocket scientist. After being brought to the United States as part ofOperation Paperclip, he developed guidance systems withWernher von Braun's team for theUS Army, and later was a scientist withNASA. He was also instrumental in the development of theion engine for long-endurance space flight, and a wide variety of scientific experiments.[1][2][3]
Stuhlinger was born inNiederrimbach (now part ofCreglingen),Württemberg,Germany. At age 23, he earned his doctorate in physics at theUniversity of Tübingen in 1936, working withOtto Haxel,Hans Bethe and his advisorHans Geiger.[4][5][6]In 1939 to 1941, he worked in Berlin, on cosmic rays and nuclear physics as an assistant professor atTechnische Hochschule Berlin (todayTechnische Universität Berlin) developing innovative nuclear detector instrumentation.[7]
Despite showing promise as a scientist, in 1941 Stuhlinger was drafted as a private in the German Army and sent to the Russian front, where he was wounded during theBattle of Moscow. Following this, he was in theBattle of Stalingrad and was one of the few members of his unit to survive and make the long, on-foot retreat out of Russia in the cold of winter.[8] Upon reaching German territory in 1943, Stuhlinger was ordered to the rocket development center in Peenemünde where he joined Dr.Wernher von Braun's team. For the remainder of the war, he worked in the field of guidance systems.[9]
Stuhlinger was one of the first group of 126 scientists who emigrated to the United States with von Braun after World War II as part ofOperation Paperclip.[10] From 1945 to 1950 he primarily worked on guidance systems in US Army missile programs atFort Bliss, Texas. In 1950, von Braun's team and the missile programs were transferred toRedstone Arsenal atHuntsville, Alabama. For the next decade, Stuhlinger and other von Braun team members worked on Army missiles, but they also devoted efforts in building an unofficial space capability. He eventually served as director of the Advanced Research Projects Division of theArmy Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA).[7]
In 1954, Stuhlinger assisted in the founding of the Rocket City Astronomical Association (Renamed to theVon Braun Astronomical Society following von Braun's death) where he served as one of the five original directors for the observatory built insideMonte Sano State Park.[11]
On April 14, 1955, together with many other Paperclip members, he became a naturalized United States citizen.[1]
In the 1950s, Stuhlinger, along with von Braun, collaborated withWalt Disney Pictures. Together, they produced three films,Man in Space andMan and the Moon in 1955, andMars and Beyond in 1957. Stuhlinger worked as a technical consultant for these films.[12]
Stuhlinger played a small but important role in the race to launch a US satellite after the success ofSputnik 1. There was little time to develop and test automated guidance or staging systems, so Stuhlinger developed a simple spring-powered staging timer that was triggered from the ground. On the night of January 31, 1958, Stuhlinger was at the controls of the timer when theExplorer 1 was launched, triggering the device right on time. He became known as "the man with the golden finger." This satellite discovered theVan Allen radiation belt through a cosmic ray sensor, a felicitous intersection with his early physics expertise, included in a science package supervised by Stuhlinger.
In 1960, the major part of ABMA was transferred to NASA, forming theMarshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) inHuntsville, Alabama. Stuhlinger served as director of the MSFC Space Science Laboratory from its formation in 1960 until 1968, and then was MSFC's associate director for science from 1968 to 1975.[13] Among his many other works at Marshall, he directed early planning for lunar exploration, worked on theApollo Telescope Mount that produced a wealth of information about the Sun, led planning for the threeHigh Energy Astronomical Observatories, and worked on the initial phases of what would become theHubble Space Telescope.
In 1970, shortly after the first lunar landing, Stuhlinger received a letter from Sister Mary Jucunda inZambia, Africa, asking how billions of dollars could be spent for space research when so many children on the Earth were starving to death. Stuhlinger's thoughtful response is often cited to justify such expenditures.[14]
Stuhlinger spent much of his spare time developing designs for solar-powered spacecraft. The most popular of those designs relied onion thrusters, which ionize eithercaesium orrubidium vapor and accelerate the positively charged ions through gridded electrodes.[8] The spacecraft would be powered by one kilowatt of solar energy. He referred to the concept as a "sunship". He is considered as one of the pioneers ofelectric propulsion having, among many contributions, authored the classic textbookIon Propulsion for Space Flight (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964). In 2005, he was honored by the Electric Rocket Propulsion Society, and awarded its highest honor "The Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Electric Propulsion", which was renamed theStuhlinger Medal shortly following his death.
After retiring from NASA in January 1976, Stuhlinger became an adjunct professor and senior research scientist at theUniversity of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), holding this position for the next 20 years. In 1978, he was at theUniversity of Munich for six months on aHumboldt Fellowship. Ernst was especially proud of winning this award as an American scientist. During 1984-1989, he was also a senior research associate withTeledyne Brown Engineering.
Starting in 1990, Stuhlinger andFrederick I. Ordway III collaborated on the two-volume biographyWernher von Braun: Crusader for Space (Krieger Publishing, 1994). In it, Stuhlinger downplayed claims that von Braun had mistreated prisoners working on theV-2 program during the war. Michael J. Neufeld has questioned this version, maintaining that knowledge of V-2 production usingforced labor is an established fact.[15] Stuhlinger reiterated the point that their aim was ultimately peaceful.[16] In a newspaper article he wrote:
Yes, we did work on improved guidance systems, but in late 1944 we were convinced that the war would soon be over before new systems could be used on military rockets. However, we were convinced that somehow our work would find application in the future rockets that would not aim at London, but at the moon.[17][18]
Stuhlinger was interviewed in 1984 by fellow Operation Paperclip scientistKonrad Dannenberg and UAH professor Donald Tarter for an oral history series. This hour-long review of their experiences has information on early space programs.[19]
In 2004, when he was 90, Stuhlinger helped to raise funds to preserve a Saturn V rocket display at Huntsville, Alabama.[20]Ernst Stuhlinger died in Huntsville at age 94.
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