Photo of Hermann Oberth. NASA public domain image colelction.

Hermann Oberth (1894-1989) is considered to be one of the top three pioneers in modern rocketry and is credited with suggesting that space stations would be essential if humans wished to travel to other planets. Oberth was the only one out of the three (Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Robert Goddard are the other two) to see human spaceflight come to fruition. He was inspired by the tales of Jules Verne in From the Earth to the Moon and Travel to the Moon. He is also the author of Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen, published in 1923. The book inspired many to pursue spaceflight, despite its challenges. Oberth was a guest at the Apollo 11 launch in July 1969 as well as at the launch of the STS-51J, Atlantis mission.