FIRST STEPS TOWARD SPACE - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

158 SMITHSONIAN ANNALS OF FLIGHT
FIGURE 1.—Some of the solid propellant rockets developed by Ludvik OcenaSek.
pensive experiment in aviation. Meanwhile his firm,
transformed into a limited liability stock company,
declared bankruptcy.
A similar interest by Ocenasek in rocketry and
jet-propelled boats marked the decade from 1928
to 1938. These years, just before World War II are
also characterized by Ocenasek's efforts to improve
the weaponry of the Czechoslovak armed forces.
Toward the end of his life he supported himself as
a self-employed designer and builder of machinery
for the pharmaceutical industry. As late as 1949,
when he was 77, he won three prizes for his apparatus
in this field.
Such is the irony of fate, however, that Ludvik
Ocenasek gained high recognition in his own country
not as an inventor but as a fighter for Czechoslovak
independence. Toward the end of World
War I he became a member of the Mafia, which was