Polish Genius : Mieczyslaw Bekker / NASA / Luna

Mechanical engineer. He was born on May 25, 1905 in Strzyżów on the Bug River. From 1910 he lived with his parents in Gosławice and graduated from high school in Konin. He studied at the Warsaw University of Technology, and from 1931 he worked as an academic teacher at the Engineering Research Institute in Warsaw.

His scientific work was interrupted by World War II. In 1939, he evacuated from Poland to France and later to Canada. After the war, he continued his scientific activities in the United States, including: in Detroit and technical universities, including in New Jersey, Washington and Michigan.

A little later, he was employed in a laboratory in Santa Barbara, California, joining the American space research program. His greatest success in cooperation with NASA (American Space Exploration Agency) was work on the construction of a wheeled lunar vehicle - Lunar Roving Vehicle. It was created at the General Motors research institute and was first tested in July 1971 during the Apollo 15 lunar expedition, and was operated on the Moon by astronauts David Scott and James Irwin. This vehicle was used on the Moon twice more - in April and December 1972 (the "Apollo 16" and "Apollo 17" missions). He visited Poland twice - in 1974 and 1979, visiting, among others, Konin and Poznań. He was an honorary doctor of, among others, universities in Munich and Ottawa. Died in Santa Barbara, California - January 8, 1989.