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Wernher von Braun was born in Wirsitz, Poland (was then Germany) in 1912. He was motivated by the primordial Chinese who invented fireworks, and developed an attraction to rockets. When he was 12, he took his interest a little too far and strapped six rockets to a small wagon and lit them up. He was fascinated by the show but police came and took him into custody for his actions. He was soon released. Von Braun got moved from a normal school to a boarding school, where his grades improved. His mother bought him a telescope and he would inspect the stars every night. He soon became interested in astronomy. When he was 13, he bought a book called “The Rocket to the Interplanetary Spaces”. He spent an elongated time tying to understand it, but was unable to his dismay. He asked his teacher how he could comprehend the book, and the teacher advised him to study physics and mathematics. He did then, in fact, study these subjects and ended up graduating a year ahead of his class, emphasizing his fortitude to master the subjects. Braun then worked in his spare time as an assistant for a professor whilst attending the Berlin Institute of Technology. He became part of a group which was testing whether liquid fuels offered the best solution to powering rockets compared to solid fuels.
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