Portal:Spaceflight/Selected biography/February 2009

Theodore von Kármán (original Hungarian name Szőllőskislaki Kármán Tódor) (11 May 1881 in Budapest – 7 May 1963 in Aachen) was a Hungarian-German-American engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He is personally responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization.

In 1930 von Kármán accepted the directorship of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT), and in 1944 he and others affiliated with GALCIT founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was instrumental in recognizing the importance of the swept-back wings that are ubiquitous in modern jet aircraft, and the Kármán line is named in his honour. (more...)