10 Facts About Frank Malina

Frank Joseph Malina was an American aeronautical engineer and painter, especially known for becoming both a pioneer in the art world and the realm of scientific engineering.

In 1935, while a graduate student at Caltech, Frank Malina persuaded Professor of Aeronautics Theodore von Karman to allow him to pursue studies into rocketry and rocket propulsion.

Frank Malina's group was forced to move their operations away from the main Caltech campus into the more remote Arroyo Seco.

Frank Malina's interest in the Communist Party, Caltech's "Unit 122, " and labor activism while he was a graduate student in the 1930s had attracted the attention of the FBI.

Frank Malina moved to France and joined the fledgling United Nations as secretariat of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization under Julian Huxley.

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In 1951, Frank Malina became head of UNESCO's division of scientific research.

In 1952, at the height of the Red Scare, Frank Malina was indicted for having failed to list his Communist Party membership on an old security questionnaire from Caltech.

Frank Malina was declared a fugitive, to be arrested if and when he returned to the United States.

In 1990, Frank Malina was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame.

Frank Malina died in 1981 in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris, France.