Ludwig Roth (June 10, 1909 – November 1, 1967) was a German

aerospace engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

who was the head of the Peenemünde Future Projects Office which designed the

Wasserfall The ("Waterfall remote-controlled anti-aircraft rocket") was a German guided supersonic surface-to-air missile project of World War II. Development was not completed before the end of the war and it was not used operationally. The system was ...

and created advanced rockets designs such as the A9/A10 ICBM. Roth arrived in New York under

Operation Paperclip The Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War I ...

on November 16, 1945, via the SS ''Argentina'' and served at

Fort Bliss Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Established in 1848, the fort was renamed in 1854 to honor William Wallace Smith Bliss, Bvt.Lieut.Colonel William W.S. Bliss (1815–1853 ...

and

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is the List of municipalities in Alabama, most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city is estimated to be 241,114 in 2024, making it the List of United States cities by population, 100th-most populous ...

. He and his family relocated to

Palos Verdes, California The Palos Verdes Peninsula () is a peninsular subregion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located within southwestern Los Angeles County, California. It is often called simply "Palos Verdes", and is made up of a group of cities in the Palos ...

. In Los Angeles, California he worked for Northrop Norair Division as Vice-President of Northrop Space Labs and then Douglas Aircraft as Director of SATURN/APOLLO Program Extensions. His son Axel Roth went on to work for NASA as an engineer, and ended his career as Associate Director of

Marshall Space Flight Center Marshall Space Flight Center (officially the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center; MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville postal address), is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government's ...

. His son Volker worked for

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

as Space Lab Design Manager. His grandson, Karl Roth, currently works at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) supporting International Space Station, Lunar Gateway and Artemis Missions, working Payload Ground System Integration and NASA/MSFC Ground Segment between the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roth, Ludwig 1909 births 1967 deaths People from Groß-Gerau People from the Grand Duchy of Hesse Early spaceflight scientists German aerospace engineers 20th-century German inventors German people of World War II Engineers from Hesse People from Huntsville, Alabama Operation Paperclip