Si Può Già Tentare Un Viaggio Dalla Terra Alla Luna?

First technical work on space travel in Italian, and Gussalli's own report, dated January 1923, on the invention he had been experimenting with since 1909–1912: a “propulsore a doppia reazione” (double-reaction propulsor), in which a turbine wheel built along De Laval lines is spun at high peripheral speed against a high-velocity gas jet to wring extra reactive thrust from it.

After laying out the general theory of reaction propulsors and describing the device and its tests, Gussalli closes by weighing whether a trip to the Moon could already be attempted with it, citing the published opinions of Esnault-Pelterie and Goddard, and sketches a two-phase plan — a single prototype vehicle, then a production “train” of them — that he compares in scale to building a fleet of 500 aeroplanes or a dreadnought.

Gussalli revisited this same 1912 propulsor, updated, as Part One of his 1941 Propulsori A Reazione Per L'Astronautica, Seconda Comunicazione (Catalog B), before moving on in that later book to an entirely new, solar-powered design.