Piaţa Hermann Oberth

Cobblestones and Dracula we can understand, but what does Sighişoara have to do with space exploration? Heaps, it turns out. If it wasn't for one of Sighişoara's most beloved residents, space might still be 'out there'. Though he was born in Sibiu, Hermann Oberth (1894-1989), considered one of the fathers of modern astronautics and rocketry, is revered as a local boy (don't remind anyone that he only spent a few years here as a child).

Inspired by Jules Verne as a skygazing tyke, he started to design space rockets at the age of 14. Later, when studying medicine and physics in Munich, he wrote prolifically about the possibility and mechanics of space travel. Most of his dissertations were dismissed by the scientific community, but in 1929 he had what ended up being his big break: his designs were used to build model spaceships for the kitschy Fritz Lang film Woman on the Moon. That year, the German army launched a rocket research program. Hmm...

During WWII, he codeveloped the infamous V2 rocket for the Germans, then continued research in the US before retiring and publishing books on alternative energy sources and space exploration.