Weltraumfahrt - Utopie?

Zehn Beiträge, herausgegeben von der Gesellschaft für Natur und Technik, with 54 illustrations, copyright 1948 by the Verlagsbuchhandlung Natur und Technik, Vienna, printed by Gloria (R. Kaspar & Co.). The cover design and text drawings are by Prof. Oskar Kaudelka. The publisher’s foreword explains that the papers first appeared in the magazine Natur und Technik and were gathered because no German-language book on spaceflight had appeared since Willy Ley’s Die Möglichkeit der Weltraumfahrt (1929), Oberth’s Wege zur Raumschiffahrt (1929) and Sänger’s Raketenflugtechnik (1933), all of which are in Catalog A. It adds that the cover picture already includes a composite photograph of the Earth from a height of 160 km, showing the curvature of the globe.

Part I, “Grundfragen der Weltraumfahrt,” and the closing “Der Zauberlehrling” are by Kurt Pervesler. Part II (projects): Robert Klumak, “Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen”; Karl Wanka, “Der Schuß zum Mond”; Guido Pirquet, “Die Außenstation, das Sprungbrett ins Weltall”; Ferdinand Cap, “Mit Atomkraft ins Weltall.” Part III (practice): Friedrich Schmiedl on rocket mail, Erich Dolezal on the V-2 and its successors, Manfred Stein on propellants and Viktor Oberguggenberger on the V-2 in upper-atmosphere research. Part IV, by Theodor Wense, is a medical look at human spaceflight. Schmiedl’s rocket mail is also honored in Kessler’s Rocket Airmail Stamps in Catalog A.