\tOberth, Hermann
Oberth, Hermann (Julius) (1894-1989) a German physicist, considered one of the pioneers of modern rocketry. He was more a theoretician than an engineer. His book The Rocket into Interplanetary Space (1923) thoroughly described almost every aspect of spaceflight and gave impetus to rocketry and astronautical research. Road to Space Travel, an expansion of his first book, was published in 1929.
Oberth was born in Transylvania, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in Romania. He attended the universities of Munich and Heidelberg and, in 1940, became a German citizen. Oberth worked for the German government, and his research on rocketry led to the development of the first long-range rocket-propelled military missile, the V-2. After World War II, he did research for the Italian navy, 1950-53, and the U.S. Army, 1955-58. He retired to Germany in 1958.