FIRST STEPS TOWARD SPACE - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

142 SMITHSONIAN ANNALS OF FLIGHT
something of a communications problem; Ley's
English wasn't very good at that time, and our
German was nonexistent. It was not easy to carry
on technical conversations, but with the aid of
drawings, sketches, and patient explanation on
Ley's part, we managed it after a fashion. 5
Ley and his VfR associates, who included Rudolph
Nebel, Klaus Riedel, and several others, then
gave us the most memorable experience of the entire
trip—a proving-stand test (Figure 1) of a small
liquid-propellant rocket motor employing liquid
oxygen and gasoline. Mrs. Pendray and I were not
aware at the time that Goddard's successful shots
since 1926 had been accomplished with liquid
propellants, and this experiment at the Raketenflugplatz
was the first of its kind we had witnessed.
Upon our return I reported fully to the Society, on
the evening of 1 May 1931, both the method and
the promise of the German experiments. 6
A few days later Hugh F. Pierce, who was subsequently
to become president of the Society and one
FIGURE 1.—Author in 1931 visiting the proving ground of
the Verein fiir Raumschiffahrt near Berlin. An early type
of liquid-fuel rocket motor is in the thrust frame. From left,
Willy Ley, Klaus Riedel, Rudolf Nebel, G. Edward Pendray.
of the four original founders of Reaction Motors,
Inc., proposed that the Society delay no longer the
beginning of its own experimental program. An
Experimental Committee was formed, with myself
as chairman, and the Society's Rocket No. 1 was
designed by Pierce and me. It was patterned in
general after the "Two-Stick Repulsor" rocket of
the VfR, designs for which I had discussed with
Ley in Berlin. 7
The rocket (Figure 2) was constructed in a small
machine shop Pierce had established in the basement
of the apartment house where he lived. The
propellant tanks consisted of two parallel cylindrical
tubes of aluminum, each 5i/£ feet long and
FIGURE 2.—ARS No. 1, during a demonstration and lecture
at New York University (Washington Square Campus), in
spring 1932. Hugh F. Pierce, who constructed the rocket, is
packing the parachute in its container (made from a tencent-store
saucepan) as G. Edward Pendray, co-designer of
the rocket, holds the parachute. The cone-shaped nose was
designed to open up at the height of the flight and eject
the parachute. The parachute itself, made by Mrs. Leatrice
M. Pendray from a scaled-down design for a professional
aviation parachute, was of silk pongee. Photo from Pendray
Collection, Princeton University Library.