Forschung Zwischen Luftfahrt Und Raumfahrt.

Signed and inscribed by Sänger on the front wrapper, in blue ink, to Dr. L. R. Shepherd, President of the British Interplanetary Society, “with kindest regards from the author.” The title page credits Sänger as lecturer in rocket propulsion at the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart and first president of the International Astronautical Federation. The minutes of the First International Astronautical Congress (Paris, 1950), where he was elected provisional president, are in the collection (see the First Astronautical Congress feature). The verso states “Erste Auflage / Ausgabe 1954,” published and printed by Verlag Walter Pustet, Tittmoning/Obb.

Part A, “Zur Lage der Raumfahrt,” is a programmatic essay on the motives for spaceflight, its fields of work (promotion, research, engineering, practice), the two technical paths to it, and the tasks of the International Astronautical Federation, with an organization chart (Tafel 3) linking industry, aviation authorities and UNESCO to a proposed International Academy for Space Research. Part B, “Angewandte Forschung zwischen Luftfahrt und Raumfahrt,” surveys the uses of jet propulsion from piston and turbine engines through ramjets, solid and liquid rockets to thermal atomic and photon rockets, and sets out a research program in problems of the first to fourth order. A drawing of a supersonic ramjet transport (Abb. 5) shows the sectioned fuselage with pilot space and heating grid.

The back matter carries Pustet advertisements, including one for Koelle and Kaeppeler’s Literaturverzeichnis der Astronautik / Literature-Index of Astronautics, 1,633 titles arranged according to Sänger’s proposed 999-point classification of space research.