Saturn V
Background

In September 1945, the U.S. government brought the German rocket technologist Wernher von Braun and over 1,500 German rocket engineers and technicians to the United States in Operation Paperclip, a program authorized by President Truman. Von Braun, who had helped create the German V-2 rocket, was assigned to the Army's rocket design division. Between 1945 and 1958, his work was restricted to conveying the ideas and methods behind the V-2 to American engineers, though he wrote books and articles in popular magazines.

This approach changed in 1957, when the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 atop an R-7 ICBM, which could carry a thermonuclear warhead to the U.S. The Army and government began putting more effort towards sending Americans into space before the Soviets. They turned to von Braun's team, who had created the Jupiter series of rockets. The Juno I rocket launched the first American satellite in January 1958. Von Braun considered the Jupiter series of rockets to be a prototype of the upcoming Saturn series of rockets, and referred to it as "an infant Saturn".
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