Astronáutica (Fundamento De Los Viajes Espaciales).

A rigorous but non-fiction introduction to space flight by the Argentine engineer José Mateo, formerly geophysicist and professor at the Astronomical Observatory of the National University of La Plata (then styled “Eva Perón”). The wrapper cover reads Buenos Aires 1954 and the colophon records that printing was finished on 21 December 1954 at Talleres Gráficos Domínguez, Bignone y Cía., while the title page is dated 1955. The Prologue is by Prof. Carlos María Ramos Mejía, and the wrapper flap carries a portrait and biographical note on the author, written by the publisher.

Mateo states in the Introduction that astronautics is a matter of rational mechanics and applied astronomy, and warns readers to expect no novelistic tale. Eight chapters and forty numbered sections run from the principles of mechanics (gravity, escape velocity, action and reaction) through first solutions (exhaust velocities, the stepped rocket), weightless bodies, orbits and Kepler’s laws, the voyage to the Moon via space stations and transfer orbits, life aboard a space station, and interplanetary voyages to Mars and Venus, closing with “Ciencia y técnica.”

The text is supported by numerous mathematical tables, orbit diagrams and a few photographic plates. The publisher notes at the end that Mateo was preparing another work, Ave Fénix, a memoir of his scientific life.