Heinz-Hermann Koelle

Koelle was born in 1925 in the Free City of Danzig, son of a lieutenant-colonel in the police. After Germany annexed Danzig in 1939, Koelle joined the Luftwaffe and served as a pilot during the war. During his time in a prisoner of war camp after the war, Koelle turned his back on military matters and turned to the field of civilian spaceflight. In 1948 he re-formed the pre-war German Society for Space Travel, which brought him into contact with von Braun and many others of the former Peenemünde team. In 1951 he and another ex-pilot helped von Braun publish his book Mars Project in Germany, arranging a publisher to take it on. ==ABMA and MSFC==

Koelle arrived in the U.S. in April 1955, three months before President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that country's intent to launch a satellite during the International Geophysical Year in 1957. He took charge of Preliminary Design Section of the Structures and Mechanics Laboratory. The section had the task of carrying out "blue-sky" studies into conversions and modifications of various missiles for use as space launchers. Over time the section grew from 4 to 70 people as their studies on what was then known as "Super-Jupiter" evolved into the "Juno V" and finally into the Saturn I. Koelle's last job for the Army involved a feasibility study for a lunar base under Project Horizon. When ABMA became part of NASA in 1960, the Redstone Arsenal became the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the Preliminary Design Section became the Future Projects Office. The Office served to coordinate between MSFC and NASA as a whole, as well as continuing to study new missions based on the Saturn rockets. In 1960 Koelle became a naturalized American citizen. He took his doctorate in Engineering at Technische Universität Berlin in 1963. ==Chair of Space Technology==

As Koelle watched the conduct of the Vietnam War force reduction in NASA budgets, he concluded that the rapid progress he had participated in was no longer possible, and decided to look for other work. In 1965 he accepted a teaching position at TU Berlin. Following the death of Eugen Sänger (1964), the University offered him the Chair of Space Technology in 1965, a position he held for 30 years. ==Family==

He married Elisabeth Trautmann in 1951; they had three daughters, Ingrid, Karin and Patricia. ==Works==

• Handbook of astronautical engineering, Editor Heinz Hermann Koelle, McGraw-Hill, 1961 • Prospects of a settlement on the moon: development, operation, cost, benefits, Institut für Luft und Raumfahrt (Berlin), 2002 ==References==