Theodore von Kármán, an aerodynamicist and teacher, came to the California Institute of Technology in 1926 to help design the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory. He later found funding for several graduate students and others to do rocket research. These projects, known as the Rocket Research Project, the Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research Project, and GALCIT Project #1, were forerunners of what would later be called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

For additional information about Theodore von Kármán, see Notes from the JPL Archives Oral Historian.

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