The first National Medal of Science ever awarded went to a rocket scientist. Kennedy handed it to Theodore von Kármán in February 1963. An 81-year-old Hungarian engineer who co-founded JPL, founded Aerojet, and wrote the math that lets anything fly faster than sound. Congress had created the award four years earlier as the highest honor America gives a scientist or engineer. Von Kármán was pick number one. He was so frail at the ceremony that Kennedy offered him an arm on the steps. Von…