Jesco von Puttkamer
| Jesco von Puttkamer | |
|---|---|
Jesco von Puttkamer 2009 at German television ZDF
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| Born |
Jesco Freiherr von Puttkamer September 22, 1933 Leipzig; Germany |
| Died | December 27, 2012 (aged 79) |
| Occupation | Aerospace engineer |
| Employer | NASA |
Jesco Hans Heinrich Max Freiherr von Puttkamer (September 22, 1933 – December 27, 2012) was a German-American aerospace engineer and senior NASA manager from Leipzig.
He belonged to a widely extended noble family, von Puttkamer. According to a longstanding family tradition, each firstborn Puttkamer receives the first name of "Jesco".
After World War II, during which his family lived in Switzerland, von Puttkamer finished high school in Konstanz and studied mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule (RWTH Aachen University) in Aachen, graduating with a university degree.
In 1962 von Puttkamer left Germany for the United States, where he joined Wernher von Braun's rocket team at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as an engineer during the Apollo program. His boss at Marshall Space Flight Center was Ernst Geissler. He received United States citizenship in 1967.
At NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. since 1974, he first served as a NASA program manager in charge of long-range planning of deep space manned activities (flights beyond Earth orbit) and he was an ardent advocate of manned space exploration and SETI. While in NASA, he also worked with Gene Roddenberry as technical advisor to Paramount Pictures for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), contributing, among other things, the hypothetical theory behind the faster-than-light space warp drive and the promotional slogan "Space — The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning".
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