Wernher von Braun, born on March 23, 1912, in Germany, dreamed of space travel from the time he was a teenager. He received a small telescope as a gift and became fascinated with the idea of reaching the stars. He studied engineering and became one of the world's leading experts on rockets. Von Braun's greatest achievement was the Saturn V, the rocket that carried astronauts to the moon during NASA's Apollo program. The Saturn V stood 363 feet tall, about the height of a 36-story building. It produced 7.5 million pounds of thrust at launch, enough power to shake buildings miles away. The rocket had three stages. Each stage burned its fuel and fell away, making the remaining rocket lighter and faster. Only the small capsule at the top actually reached the moon. Between 1969 and 1972, Saturn V rockets carried twelve astronauts to the lunar surface. Von Braun's story is complicated because he originally built rockets for Germany during World War II. After the war, he came to the United States and dedicated his career to space exploration.