NASA Legend Jesco von Puttkamer 1933-2012

by alvin remmers

Jesco von Puttkamer, a German emigrant who came from nobility dating back to the 13th century and was recruited by Wernher von Braun for America’s space program, has passed. He was 79 years old. He was brought here, along with other engineering specialists from Germany, in 1962 by von Braun in response to President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the moon within the decade. Von Puttkamer was the last of that special ‘class’ of NASA employees still active at the agency.

One of the giants of the space age — he was instrumental in developing the Saturn V rocket booster used during the Apollo missions — his last job was generating NASA’s daily International Space Station reports. His service has spanned most of NASA’s existence.

David Baker wrote in the U.K.’s Spaceflight magazine: “A recipient of numerous honors and awards, von Puttkamer was a giant among his peers and he will be sorely missed by friends and acquaintances alike, certainly by all who came under the influence of this remarkable advocate of space exploration for the furtherance of humanity throughout the universe.”

We had the pleasure of interviewing the gentleman at the International Space Development Conference in Huntsville, Alabama in May of 2011. The six segments of the video interview we later published here on Moonandback run a combined total of 66 minutes. Interviewing over 150 subjects, we have not met a more fascinating and gracious man. To interview Jesco von Puttkamer was having a ringside seat to America’s space history while being wonderfully entertained and immersed in NASA’s glory.

Here are links to the interviews:

Jesco von Puttkamer, part 1 – Way Out On A Limb

Jesco von Puttkamer, part 2 – Becoming Acclimated In 1960′s Dixie

Jesco von Puttkamer, part 3 – To Put A Man On The Moon

Jesco von Puttkamer, part 4 – A World View Sea Change

Jesco von Puttkamer, part 5 – Marketing Space: Lessons From von Braun

Jesco von Puttkamer, part 6 – Passing On The Torch

In addition to his contributions to America’s space efforts, von Puttkamer was also esteemed in the world of science fiction — he served as the technical advisor on “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” in 1979.

NASA released this obituary:

Jesco von Puttkamer, who began his NASA career in 1962, when he worked on Wernher von Braun’s rocket team as an engineer at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., during the Apollo Program, has died, following a brief illness. He was 79.

Von Puttkamer most recently worked in the International Space Station Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington as a technical manager. For more than a decade, he authored the ISS Daily Report, which chronicled the lives and activities of the crew members living aboard the International Space Station. He also was instrumental in advancing U.S. and Russian cooperation in human spaceflight. His personal relationships in Russia and the U.S. allowed him to bring both communities together in dialogue and activities. The space station program still is benefiting from his work.

Von Puttkamer arranged the translation from Russian to English of the Boris Chertok series “Rockets and People” that chronicled the history of the Russian space program. He also was instrumental in Russian exhibitions of U.S. accomplishments in space, including museum series on von Braun, Apollo 11 and the Hubble Space Telescope.

“Jesco was an institution at NASA,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “His time here spanned almost the entire breadth of the agency’s human spaceflight programs. He was a direct link from von Braun’s efforts to get people off the ground to the International Space Station and 12 years of continuous human presence. We lost an outspoken advocate for NASA’s efforts to explore farther than we ever have gone before.”

Von Puttkamer received numerous awards during his 50 years at NASA. Among those honors was NASA’s prestigious Exceptional Service Medal in 2004. In 2007, he received a NASA Honor Award for successful initiatives of advancing American-Russian cooperation in spaceflight. In December 2008, the U.S.-wide German-American Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia honored von Puttkamer with its “Distinguished German-American of the Year” award. For this honor, he received congratulatory letters from President George W. Bush, then-NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and the Governors of the states of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

He is the author of more than a dozen books on spaceflight. His novelette, “The Sleeping God,” was published in the anthology “Star Trek: The New Voyages 2.” His diary/book on the first lunar landing by Apollo 11 was published in Beijing in 1982 in a Chinese translation. A revised edition of this book was published for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission in July 2009.

Von Puttkamer lived in Huntsville beginning in 1962 when he worked at Marshall with von Braun in the aeroballistics division. He came to NASA at von Braun’s personal invitation. In 1974, von Puttkamer transferred to NASA Headquarters.

Von Puttkamer is survived by his wife, Ursula.

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