Wanted More Challenges

“After the successful lunar flights,” Dr.. von Braun said, “the agency lost its impetus. There were already too many. old plans still to be implemented and there was too little money with which to do it. We were told perhaps more funds would be forthcoming at some later date. But I had to have the challenges and I suppose I couldn't wait, untif the grass got greener.”

The tall, robust and articulate Dr. von Braun was one of those rare engineers with charisma. Waitresses at Cape Canaveral would ask Dr. von Braun to autograph their menus, while not even recognizing the higher agency brass at the table.

Around the country people who had forgotten the names of most of the astronauts and never knew those of other agency officials would think of Dr. van Braun as N.A.S.A. and write, asking all sorts of questions about him as a man and about his ideas for space.

Although he became an American eiti4 zen, his role in the V‐2 development could: not be entirely forgotten or forgiven. An occasional heckler would interrupt one of his speeches with a “Sieg Heil.” ,A movie on his life, “I Aim for the Stars,'. prompted a comedian's laugh line, “ButI sometimes hit London.”

This did‐not distract Dr. von Brqqn

from the pursuit of his vision of man's future in space. In 1975 he founded the National Space Institute, a private organ, ization to gain more public support 0.114_

understanding of space activities. •

He continued to speak earnestly’

human colonies on the moon and in space, of manufacturing in huge orbital. stations and of eventual manned flights, to Mars.

Back in July 1969, at the time of the

first moon landing, Dr. von Braun reflected on his role in space exploration anck on the infinite opportunities. He quoted from the late Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the American rocket experimenter, who had written:

“There can be no thought of finishing;:

for aiming at the stars, both literally and. figuratively, is the work of generations; but no matter how much progress one makes there is always the thrill of just beginning.”