In their works, science-fiction writers predicted the state of future societies on Earth, explored the consequences of interstellar (between or among the stars) travel, and imagined the forms of life on other planets. Hollywood joined in, turning out films that played upon Americans' fear of invasion during the unsettling times of the Cold War.
The Thing (1951),
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951),
When Worlds Collide (1951), and
The War of the Worlds (1953) were all big budget science-fiction movies that were highly successful. Still, it was all fiction, whether conceived on a typewriter or a Hollywood lot.
One man was greatly responsible for helping to change Americans' vision of spaceflight from entertainment to one of scientific endeavor. German-born American engineer Wernher von Braun (1912–1977), who had helped develop rockets for the German army during World War II, was working for the U.S. Army at the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, when the 1950s began. At that time, he and his team of scientists and engineers were working on the development of ballistic missiles, ones that would eventually serve to launch the first U.S.
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