Jaroslav K. Langmaier was born in Prague and his mother came from Bělčice. After the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops, he emigrated to the United States. He spent his first ten years in emigration in New York, then he moved to Los Angeles, and from 1978 he worked there for NASA and for the California Institute of Technology. He participated in prestigious projects such as the Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar Project or the launch of the Mars Observer spacecraft.