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FIRST STEPS TOWARD SPACE - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

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138 SMITHSONIAN ANNALS OF FLIGHT<br />

FIGURE 4.—Professor Hermann Oberth on the studio grounds of the UFA, during the filming<br />

of "Frau in Mond." Photo from Frederick I. Ordway III collection.<br />

ment who in 1928 still insisted to me that rockets<br />

flying farther than artillery shells would be of no<br />

military interest.<br />

Professor Dr. von Dallwitz-Wegner maintained<br />

that a change of speed of 30 m/sec 2 would be experienced<br />

by a man jumping off a train going at<br />

100 km/hr. 19 Apparently he confused speed with<br />

acceleration.<br />

Why do I say all this? Everything mentioned has<br />

been disproved and the people of that time are<br />

dead and forgotten. Is it necessary to exhume dead<br />

bodies?<br />

Ladies and gentlemen, I am not exhuming dead<br />

bodies. I am talking about something living! When<br />

listening to the objections of today's scientists<br />

against new inventions and discoveries, the same<br />

thing is found again. For example, let us look at<br />

the rediscovery of Atlantis by Pastor Spanuth, or<br />

at the objection against parapsychology, or at research<br />

on Unidentified Flying Objects. Even in the<br />

field of astronautics it appears quite often in Germany<br />

that people such as A. F. Staats, Hermann<br />

Langkraer, or Schonenberger go unnoticed, whereas<br />

others who cannot measure up to them get the lion's<br />

share of research funds.<br />

However, I do not want to close on a bitter note.<br />

Instead let me tell you of a personal experience<br />

that has a brighter side. First, in 1927, the Verein

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