- Year
- 1935
- By
- Ananoff, Alexandre
- Published
- Paris: Société Astronomique de France.
- Edition
- French. First edition, wraps.
- Ciancone
- 5.
- Shelf
- R7
- Catalog
- Catalog A · Early Pioneers
Reproduces two lectures Ananoff gave at the observatory of the Société Astronomique de France on 1 and 8 April 1935, first printed in the journal L’Astronomie that summer. In his preface André Hirsch, co-founder with Robert Esnault-Pelterie (REP) of the international astronautics prize, recommends it as the clearest popular introduction to the subject and as a companion to REP’s L’Astronautique (also in this collection).
It runs from Lucian, Cyrano and Verne through “unrealizable projects” (Verne’s cannon, Mas and Drouet’s giant sling, de Graffigny’s circular tunnel) to escape velocities, fuels, and the rocket designs of Goddard, Oberth, Hohmann, Hoefft and Tsiolkovsky, then interplanetary trajectories, weightlessness, artificial gravity and Noordung’s space station. A closing survey of astronautical societies cites Gussalli’s 1923 book, Lasser and Philp, all also in this collection.
A footnote on page 15 notes Tsiolkovsky’s death as the pamphlet went to press. Eighteen figures, several drawn by Ananoff himself, and a closing bibliography.
