FIRST STEPS TOWARD SPACE - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

136 SMITHSONIAN ANNALS OF FLIGHT
Regarding space capsules, I proposed to paint
them black on one side and leave them shiny on
the other, and to turn the desired side to the sun.
I also proposed a spiral tube which had the function
of cleaning the air by distillation. When shadowed
by the spacecraft, the tube would cool down, and
condense out the wastes of the spacecraft, because
they all have a higher freezing point than oxygen,
nitrogen, and argon, which would remain as gases.
These would first pass through a filter, and then be
warmed to a convenient temperature on the sunny
side of the spacecraft. The tube could be cleaned
by turning the cold side to the sun and evaporating
the condensates. During this process the condensates
could also be retained, cooled again, and stored for
certain purposes. I also proposed a giant space
mirror in that book in order to offer something
sensational to the reader.
I had submitted this manuscript of the University
of Heidelberg as a thesis for a Ph.D., but it was
refused. Councillor Max Wolf, who was an astronomer,
could not accept it because it dealt mainly
with physical-medical subjects; he gave me a certificate,
however, stating that he thought the work
was scientifically correct and ingenious.
With that certificate I offered my book to the
publishing firm of R. Oldenbourg in Munich. This
little book, which appeared in 1923 under the title
Die Rakete zu den Planetenrdumen, 11 fulfilled its
purpose. It stimulated public interest, and numerous
authors explained the difficult content to the
layman, among them Max Valier, Otto Willi Gail,
Willy Ley, Karl August von Laffert, and Felix
Linke. 12
In 1928 Fritz von Opel revealed his famous
rocket-powered car. Maybe it will be of interest to
you to know that when I visited him, his first words
were, "Professor, do not judge me solely by the
rocket-powered car. I do serious work, too." A
rocket engine works most efficiently when the gas
velocity ejected rearward is matched by the forward
velocity of the vehicle. In the case of the rocketpowered
car, the efficiency was very poor. Opel
knew that, but he showed his rocket car for publicity.
This, however, did not prevent Professor
Kirchberger, who was not aware of that fact, from
calculating the efficiency of Opel's rocket car from
the consumed fuel and the power output. Then he
put the result into calculations for space rockets so
as to prove that space travel is impossible (or at
least that he himself could not have invented it).
As I said, Opel used his car only for advertising
purposes, and he succeeded—public interest was
very much stimulated.
During the years from 1922 to 1928 I finally
learned that I was not alone in my ideas regarding
rocketry. As early as 1922 I had heard of Dr. Robert
H. Goddard and had written to him, whereupon he
sent me his publication "A Method of Reaching Extreme
Altitudes." 13 In 1924 I heard of Konstkntin
Tsiolkovskiy for the first time. In 1925 he sent me
his book Rakyeta v kosmeetcheskoye prostranstvo/ 4
and I was helped with the translation by one of my
students, Arzamanoff, a Russian emigrant. Then in
1924, the city engineer of Essen, Walter Hohmann,
published his book about rocket trajectories in
interplanetary space. 15 He had made these calculations
for his own enjoyment but had not published
them because he feared ridicule. When he sa^ that
such far-out ideas could indeed be published, he
ventured into the public limelight. One of his calculated
trajectories was later used for the calculation
of the trajectory for a spacecraft to MarfsJ a;nd
another for a spacecraft to Venus. In 1926 I heard
for the first time of Hermann Ganswindt. 16 In 1929
I wrote about him: "Germany possesses the peculiar
gift of producing great men and then letting them
perish through neglect!"
In 1929 I published Wege zur Raumschiffahrt, 17
in which I reported most of my theories on space
travel and my inventions. I described manned space
travel in detail, proposed the inclined trajectory
towards the east for ascending space ships, investigated
the relationships between consumption of
propellant and gain of energy, commented on most
of the errors in the literature of the day concerning
rockets, and finally, described an electrostatic space
ship.
It is well known that manned space travel has
required fewer sacrifices than the development of
aviation. The main reason for this is that aviation
meant a leap into an unknown element, whereas in
space travel, most of the problems were solved theoretically
before being taken up practically. And, in
all humility, I think I contributed to that with my
theoretical preparatory work!
The time finally came when the German scientific
world had to take a stand on the question of space
travel. But, believe me, I was amazed upon seeing
the lack of general education, the disinterest in new