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Hungarian aerodynamicist who founded an Aeronautical Institute at Aachen before
World War I and achieved a world-class reputation in aeronautics through the 1920s.
In 1930 Robert Millikan and his associates at Caltech lured von Kármán from Aachen
to become the director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at Caltech (GALCIT).
There he trained a generation of engineers in theoretical aerodynamics and fluid
dynamics. With its eminence in physics, physical chemistry and astrophysics as
well as aeronautics, it proved to be an ideal site for the early development of
US ballistic rocketry. Von Kármán was the first chairman of Advisory Group on
Aeronautical Research and Development for NATO.
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