Members of Space Camp sit beneath a Saturn V rocket in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in this file photo.It started with 118 men.
Scientists all, rockets mostly.
They came to the U.S. after World War II, part of Operation Paperclip, a program by the U.S. government to recruit German rocket scientists to jump-start our military rocket program, which was lagging behind Germany’s even during the war. They first settled in Fort Bliss, Texas, but in 1950 they were relocated to the moribund Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala.
In the following decades, they transformed the sleepy North Alabama town of about 15,000 into a worldwide center for rocket research, turning it from the “Watercress Capital of the World” (yes, that was the town’s claim to fame) to “Rocket City USA.” In the 1950s and ’60s, using slide rules, protractors and pencils, they designed rocket after rocket, from the first ones to break Earth’s gravity to the gigantic ones that finally got us to the moon.
Fifteen families bought 37 acres on top of Monte Sano, a mountain just east of downtown that was quickly nicknamed “Sauerkraut Hill.” The forested hills and plowed fields surrounding Huntsville reminded many of their homes in Germany and they settled firmly into the city, planting roots, raising families and becoming important members of the community.