Theodore von Karman

Front:
Theodore von Kármán Aerospace Scientist SHINGTON 31 1992 20066 29 DC

Back:
THEODORE VON KARMAN First Day of Issue: August 31, 1992 First Issue Location: Washington, D.C. Born in Hungary in 1881, Theodore von Karman was the son of noted Hungarian educator Maurice von Karman. At an early age, Theodore's mathematical genius was recognized. Never an ivory-tower intellectual, von Karman kindled an interest in aeronautics when he and a friend witnessed an early flight of Henri Farman, a French aviation pioneer. By 1912, von Karman was director of the Aeronautical Institute of Aachen in Ger- many. He remained there until 1930, when he was invited to become director of the Guggenheim Aeronau- tical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. He became a citizen in 1936. In the ensuing years, he pioneered rocket research, becoming co-founder of the present NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and participat- ing in the development of the spontaneously-ignited liquid propellants used in the Apollo missions 25 years later. During his lifetime, many laboratories were named after von Karman, and in 1970 — seven years after his death-a crater on the Moon was given his name as well. No. 92-113 First Day of Issue Postcard Collection™ ©1992 Fleetwood® Cheyenne, WY 82008-0001 Original painting for the First Day of Issue Postcard by Dennis Lyall Heelwood