Catalog A · 1932

Raketenflug.

Nebel, Rudolf

Cover of Raketenflug.
Cover of Raketenflug.
Year
1932
By
Nebel, Rudolf
Published
Berlin: Raketenflugverlag.
Edition
German. First edition, wraps.
Ciancone
169.
Shelf
R6
Catalog
Catalog A · Early Pioneers

Nebel, co-founder and leader of the Raketenflugplatz Berlin-Reinickendorf, writes as a direct participant rather than a reporter, and illustrates his account with 50 photographs from inside the German rocket movement. After a short history of rockets from Congreve to Oberth, the book turns to first-person narrative: the 1929 partnership with Oberth and Klaus Riedel on the "Mirak" minimum rocket, the UFA film Frau im Mond that helped fund Oberth's early work, a tongue-in-cheek telegram inviting Henry Ford to inspect the new field, and the founding of the Raketenflugplatz itself on 27 September 1930 — the world's first rocket-flight testing ground — documented with a site map and photos of its workshop, launch stand, and grounds, alongside a full Berliner Tageblatt article on the field reprinted in facsimile.

A "Vorkämpfer des Raketenfluges" portrait gallery pictures Tsiolkovsky, Ganswind, Tiling, Winkler, Riedel, Oberth, and Nebel himself, and picture sequences trace the motor's evolution from the 7.5 kg-thrust "Spaltdüse" to the 32 kg "Kegeldüse" and document the first liquid-fuel rocket flight on 14 May 1931. Max Valier's death in a 1930 motor explosion is noted as the field's first fatality.

The book closes with cutaway diagrams for a parachute-equipped manned rocket and eight proposed applications for rocket propulsion — sounding rockets, mail rockets (Berlin to New York in 25 minutes), rocket-assisted glider launches, and manned long-range flight — remarkably close to how rocketry actually developed.

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Nebel, Rudolf. Raketenflug. Berlin: Raketenflugverlag, 1932. German. First edition, wraps. Ciancone 169. The Alustiza Collection, Catalog A: Early Pioneers. https://www.spacecollector.net/catalog-a/raketenflug/