Robert Aubinière (1912-2001), a French Air Force general and École polytechnique graduate, was the first director general of the French space agency CNES, from the agency's creation in 1962 until 1972. A member of the Free French resistance, he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Ravensbrück. After the war his military career led him to head France's nascent space programme: under his leadership CNES built up its technical capabilities, brought the Diamant launcher to success, founded the Toulouse Space Centre and selected the Kourou launch site in French Guiana. He later served as secretary general of the European launcher organisation ELDO until 1975. A founding figure of French spaceflight, he wrote prefaces for several popular space books of the 1960s.