engineering

Georg von Tiesenhausen

Georg von Tiesenhausen is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Georg von Tiesenhausen rather than just read about it. In short: Georg Heinrich Patrick Baron von Tiesenhausen (May 18, 1914 – June 3, 2018) was a German and American rocket scientist. After being brought to the United States in 1953 as part of Operation Paperclip, he was part of Wernher von Braun's team at the United States Army, and later, NASA.

Key takeaways

Georg von Tiesenhausen belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Georg von Tiesenhausen to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Georg von Tiesenhausen from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Georg Heinrich Patrick Baron von Tiesenhausen (May 18, 1914 – June 3, 2018) was a German and American rocket scientist. After being brought to the United States in 1953 as part of Operation Paperclip, he was part of Wernher von Braun's team at the United States Army, and later, NASA. He is credited with the first complete design of the Lunar Roving Vehicle which was driven on the Moon on the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions, and made a variety of other contributions to the space program.

Early years Tiesenhausen was born in Riga, Latvia, in the Russian Empire to a Baltic German noble family Tiesenhausen from his father's side, while his mother was of Scottish ancestry. He studied engineering in Hamburg, but was conscripted to the Luftwaffe in 1939 and sent to the Eastern Front. He was allowed to continue his studies and in 1943 and graduated from University of Hamburg. After his graduation he was sent to the Peenemünde Army Research Center.

Career Tiesenhausen worked with Wernher von Braun developing V-2 rockets in Germany during World War II. He came to America in 1953 as part of Operation Paperclip, where he again worked with von Braun on guided missiles such as the Redstone, this time for the United States Army at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. He was later transferred to NASA, where he worked on various spaceflight programs, including the Apollo program, which landed men on the Moon. He continued to work for NASA well into the Shuttle era. Later he worked on space tether missions.

After NASA Between 1987 and 2010, von Tiesenhausen frequently volunteered at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, lecturing to students in Space Camp programs about the future of space exploration and other topics.

Awards In 2007, he became one of the original inductees into the Space Camp Hall of Fame. On February 3, 2011, he was presented with the U.S. Space & Rocket Center's Lifetime Achievement Award for Education by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong. "Dr. von T. is one of those rare individuals who has a natural ability to inform and inspire, to educate and motivate, and, most remarkably, to endure," Armstrong said. Neil Armstrong gave a brief but impressive summary of Georg von Tiesenhausen achievements: "He is and has been a person who imagines what can be, and he has the skills to convert that image into reality."

References

Sources Birthday surprise leaves von Tiesenhausen giddy. The Huntsville Times May 14, 2009 Neil Armstrong landing at U.S. Space and Rocket Center to present award. January 27, 2011 Who's who in frontiers of science and technology: Volume 2 Remembering Dr. Georg von Tiesenhausen YouTube

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Georg von Tiesenhausen

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Georg von Tiesenhausen claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Georg von Tiesenhausen before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Georg von Tiesenhausen ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Georg von Tiesenhausen

In research: Georg von Tiesenhausen appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Georg von Tiesenhausen in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Georg von Tiesenhausen is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1914 births, 2018 deaths, 20th-century American inventors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Georg von Tiesenhausen outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Georg von Tiesenhausen in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Georg von Tiesenhausen means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Georg von Tiesenhausen out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Georg von Tiesenhausen in simple terms?

Why does Georg von Tiesenhausen matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Georg von Tiesenhausen?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Georg von Tiesenhausen.