Wheels in the Sky

Orbiting 1,075 miles above the Earth, a 250-foot-wide inflated "wheel" of reinforced nylon was conceived in the early 1950s to function as a navigational aid, meteorological station, military platform, and way station for space exploration by rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun.

Among those fascinated by tales of women and men living in space was a teenage boy growing up in Germany in the 1920s. Young Wernher von Braun was so inspired by the dream of space travel that he devoted his life to space science and rocketry. After a circuitous path that led through Nazi Germany (the SS and the Gestapo once arrested von Braun for crimes against the state because he persisted in talking about building rockets which would go into orbit around the Earth and perhaps go to the Moon), Wernher von Braun went on to become one of the leaders of the American space program and a celebrity for his early predictions of the coming Space Age.

In a groundbreaking 1952 article in Collier's magazine -- five years before Sputnik -- von Braun wedded fantasy to physics in his vision of how then-existing technology could be used to put a permanent space station into orbit around the Earth.

Soon after, von Braun appeared in a three part Disney television show, which he helped to produce, on the future of space travel. The shows -- "Man in Space," "Man and the Moon" and "Mars and Beyond" -- were enormously popular.

In 1950, von Braun and his team were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, his home for the next twenty years. Between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Arsenal's namesake: the Redstone rocket.

Still dreaming of a world in which rockets would be used for peaceful exploration, in 1952 Dr. von Braun published his concept of a space station in Collier's magazine. This station would have a diameter of 250 feet, orbit in a 1075 mile-high orbit, and spin to provide artificial gravity. In his vision, it would be the perfect jumping-off point for lunar expeditions.

Dr. Von Braun also worked with Disney studios as a technical director for three television films about Space Exploration. Over the years von Braun continued his work with Disney, hoping that Disney's involvement would bring about greater public interest in the future of the space program.

As Director of the Development Operations Division of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), von Braun's team then developed the Jupiter-C, a modified Redstone rocket. The Jupiter-C successfully launched the western hemisphere's first satellite, Explorer 1, on January 31, 1958. This event signaled the birth of America's space program.