Letter to the California State Board of Education

One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all…. The better we understand the intricacies of the universe and all it harbors, the more reason we have found to marvel at the inherent design upon which it is based…. To be forced to believe only one conclusion — that everything in the universe happened by chance — would violate the very objectivity of science itself…. What random process could produce the brains of a man or the system of the human eye?... What strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electron as real while refusing to accept the reality of a Designer on the ground that they cannot conceive Him?… It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life, and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance. — from “Letter to the California State Board of Education,” September 14, 1972, by Wernher Von Braun

Wernher Von Braun (1912–1977) was a German rocket scientist and aerospace engineer who was a leader in Nazi Germany’s rocket program during World War II and, after Germany’s surrender, the United States’ budding rocket and space programs. Having developed the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany, Braun was taken to the U.S. after Germany’s surrender as part of a secret operation. After working for some time developing the U.S. military’s intermediate range ballistic missile technology, he began working for the newly formed NASA, where he developed the Saturn V rocket, which would eventually bring man to the moon.