Willy

1956 · 140947438 — New York: The Viking Press 1956. First Edition. Near Fine/Good. First edition first printing. Signed by Wernher von Braun on the half-title page and inscribed to a young recipient: "Your Uncle Stu has told me of your interest in rockets and satellites. Good luck. Christmas 1958." x 176 pp. Bound in publisher's green cloth titled in silver on the spine blindstamped rocket design to front board. Near Fine with light soiling to covers rubbing to corners and softening to head and tail of spine. Contents lightly toned. In a Good unclipped dust jacket with moderate edgewear creasing and horizontal tears to fold lines and spine and chipping at fold ends and head and tail of spine. <p>Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun a Prussian aristocrat and SS Stormbahnfuerer who was spirited to the United States after the Second World War was one of the most important rocket developers of the 20th century. His passion had always been space exploration but during the 1940s he was charged with the development of the ballistic missiles that terrorized London during the final months of the war. After surrendering to the Americans in 1945 in order to safeguard his legacy and scientific work and himself von Braun was frustrated to spend the next few years cooling his heels with fellow German scientists in Texas and Alabama. He told one of his colleagues: “We can dream about rockets and the Moon until Hell freezes over. Unless the people understand it and the man who pays the bill is behind it no dice.†<p>Von Braun wrote the book The Mars Project in order to spark public enthusiasm for his project. Eighteen publishers turned it down but von Braun had a stroke of luck when he met Cornelius Ryan associate editor of Collier’s magazine at a symposium on space medicine in San Antonio. Ryan was impressed with the German engineer’s vision and the magazine published eight influential features on space travel over the next two years starting March 1952 in which von Braun essentially outlined the future of NASA. <p>Those features were expanded into the book The Conquest of the Moon in 1953 and by the time Viking published The Exploration of Mars in 1956 von Braun had become a national figure appearing on a “Tomorrowland†feature on Disney’s popular television show watched by tens of millions of people. The book was co-written with his Collier’s collaborators Willy Ley who had fled Nazi Germany in 1935 to become a science fiction and popular science writer in the United States and the astronomical artist Chesley Bonestell. <p>The Christmas 1958 inscription to little Jimmy was written at the end of a momentous year for von Braun: on January 31 after years of development the satellite Explorer I was successfully launched into orbit. Americans were thrilled and The American Weekly ran von Braun’s autobiography in three installments. The story was turned into the 1960 biopic I Aim at the Stars which inspired Kennedy speechwriter Mort Sahl to quip that Wernher von Braun had aimed for the stars but sometimes hit London. The Viking Press unknown