Walter Thiel

On November 1, 1932, Dr Walter Thiel (March 2 1910 - August 18 1943) was the third civilian hired by Walter Dornberger for German research at Kummersdorf (after Wernher von Braun & Heinrich Grünow) and in 1936, transferred to Dornberger's new rocket section.cite book |last=Neufeld|first=Michael J|title=The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era|year=1995|publisher=The Free Press|location=New York|isbn=|pages=p56,80,84,142,157] After transferring from Kummersdorf to the Peenemünde Army Research Center in the summer of 1940, Thiel became deputy director of the Peenemünde HVP Organization under von Braun. Before working at Kummersdorf, Thiel was a chemical engineer at the Heyland Works at Brietz near Berlin.cite book |last=Dornberger|first=Walter|authorlink=Walter Dornberger|title=V2--Der Schuss ins Weltall|year=1952 -- US translation "V-2" Viking Press:New York, 1954|month= |publisher=Bechtle Verlag|location=Esslingan|language=German|isbn=|pages=p27,50,53] Thiel also designed the motor for the Wasserfall anti-aircraft missile.Fact|date=December 2007

Walter Thiel was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1976, [ [http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.php?id=24 International Space Hall of Fame :: New Mexico Museum of Space History :: Inductee Profile ] at www.nmspacemuseum.org] and Thiel crater on the moon is named for him.

Aggregate series Development

Based on the film cooling ('veil cooling') solution identified by colleague Moritz Pöhlmann at Peenemünde, Thiel designed annular rings of tiny perforations to inject unburnt fuel through the chamber walls at the throat for evaporative cooling to prevent V-2 rocket nozzle erosion.cite book |last=Klee|first=Ernst|coauthors=Merk, Otto|title=The Birth of the Missile:The Secrets of Peenemünde|year=1963, English translation 1965|publisher=Gerhard Stalling Verlag|location=Hamburg|pages=p117] cite book |last=Collier|first=Basil|title=The Battle of the V-Weapons, 1944-1945 |origyear=1964|year=1976|publisher=The Emfield Press|location=Yorkshire|isbn=0 7057 0070 4|pages=p24,91]

By September 15, 1941, Thiel officially declared the basic eighteen-pot design of the A-4 motor finished.

Earlier in the Spring of 1941, Thiel began investigating nitric acid and diesel oil to be used as the fuel for the 30-ton-thrust A-8 .

Then on December 18, 1941, Thiel documented the initial A-9/A-10 motor design of six combustion chambers into one common nozzle in Secret Command Document 1496/41.cite book |last=Pocock|first=Rowland F|title=German Guided Missiles of the Second World War|year=1967|publisher=Arco Publishing Company, Inc.|location=New York|pages=p98]

By the middle of August 1943, Dr Thiel declared that the A-4 developmental problems preclude mass production, recommended the project be abandoned, and resigned with notification he intended to lecture thermodynamics at a technical college. Thiel was killed days later in the Operation Hydra bombing raid -- Martin Schilling replaced Thiel.

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