Konrad Dannenberg | Rocket scientist, 96

Konrad Dannenberg, 96, a German rocket scientist who was part of the Wernher von Braun team that helped put the first American astronauts on the moon, died Monday at a Huntsville, Ala., rehabilitation center.

Dr. Dannenberg had a role in developing America's key space rockets - the Redstone, Jupiter, and Saturn V, which carried American astronauts to the moon in 1969.

Once part of the Nazi war machine, Dr. Dannenberg and von Braun team members were brought to the United States to compete against the Soviet Union for supremacy in space. For many, they were heroes in the space race when Apollo, propelled by the rocket they built, reached the moon.

Only a half-dozen of the 118 German scientists who went to Huntsville in 1950 with von Braun are still living.

"We will be forever reminded of his accomplishments every time we look to the sky and see the moon," Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said.

Dr. Dannenberg, who retired from NASA in 1973, became a speaker at Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center program in Huntsville.

During World War II, he left the battlefield to work on the V-2 rocket at the German army's research center at Peenemunde. The V-2 became a deadly and destructive missile launched at Allied targets.

In an interview on the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing, he said that of all the rocket launches, the test launch of the V-2 on Oct. 3, 1942, stood out. The rocket soared 53 miles high, just past the 50-mile point where space begins. It was the first rocket to break that barrier. - AP