Johannes Schmidt
From The Space Library
Johannes Albert Nichalaus Schmidt, born around 1904, was a German rocket scientist who worked at Kiel during the war on the Walter hypergolic rocket for the Me-163 interceptor. He was captured at the end of the war and taken to the Saenger institute until being relocated to the Westcott experimental rocket facility in England at the end of 1946. He worked there for the fledgling Rocket Propulsion Establishment on further refinements of the early hypergolic rockets first started in Germany.
Schmidt was killed in a massive explosion during an engine test at Westcott on November 14 1947. Officials later stated that he was working on a JATO unit and during a dual engine test one engine prematurely ignited the other leading to an explosion heard and felt several miles away. Also killed in the explosion was J.P. Rowlands a British scientist. A third victim, J.A. Salmon died later in the hospital. 11 others were injured that day. The investigation of the blast was finally attributed to a single engine of the Walter 109/501 A.T.O. type. The unit was powered by a mixture of petroleum, hydrogen peroxide and calcium permanganate. Schmidt was cremated in England after the explosion.
