Physik Der Weltraumfahrt.

Volume 2 of the “Erforschte Welt” (Explored World) series, published under Allied Military Government License Nr. US-E-120. Gail’s foreword, dated Munich, summer 1948, reflects on technology’s capacity for both good and destruction in the war’s aftermath.

Fourteen chapters work through the physics of rocket flight — recoil, escape velocity (11.2 km/sec), orbital trajectories, propulsion, weight versus mass, and the hazards of space — explicitly rejecting Jules Verne’s cannon-shot Moon voyage as physically impossible in favor of rocket propulsion, and closing with data tables and a glossary covering figures such as Tsiolkovsky and Max Valier.

Gail (1896–1966), Munich-trained and a prolific writer of both technical science fiction and popular-science books translated across Europe, is represented elsewhere in the collection by his earlier novels Hans Hardt’s Mondfahrt, Mit Raketenkraft Ins Weltall, and By Rocket To The Moon.