EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Hermann Noordung's Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums, published here in English translation, was one of the classic writings about spaceflight. Its author, whose real name was Herman Potocnik, was an obscure former captain in the Austrian army who became an engineer. He contributed monetarily to the journal of the German Society for Space Travel (Verein für Raumschiffahrt or VfR), Die Rakete (The Rocket), begun in 1927, and he corresponded with Hermann Oberth (1894-1989), whose book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space, published in 1923) essentially launched the spaceflight movement in Germany and laid the theoretical foundations for future space efforts there. Oberth encouraged Potocnik to express his ideas about rocketry and space travel in a book, which he completed with its 100 illustrations in 1928.

(Extracted from the preface.)

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Table of Contents.

-List of Illustrations.

-Foreword. Frederick I. Ordway III.

-Preface. J.D. Hunley.

-Introduction.

-The Power of Gravity.

-The Practical Gravitational Boundary of the Earth.

-The Free Orbit.

-Maneuvering in the Gravitational Fields of Outer Space.

-The Armor Barrier of the Earth's Atmosphere.

-The Highest Altitudes Reached to Date.

-The Cannon Shot into Outer Space.

-The Reactive Force.

-The Reaction Vehicle.

-The Rocket.

-Previous Researchers Adressing the Problem of Space Flight.

-The Travel Velocity and the Efficiency of Rocket Vehicles.

-The Ascent.

-General Comments about the Structure of the Space Rocket.

-Proposals To Date.

-Comments Regarding Previous Design Recommendations.

-The Return to Earth.

-Hohmann's Landing Maneuver.

-Landing in a Forced Circular Motion.

-Landing in Braking Ellipses.

-Oberth's Landing Maneuver.

-The Result To Date.

-Two Other Important Questions.

-The Space Rocket in an Inclined Trajectory.

-The Space Rocket as an Airplane.

-The Space Station in Empty Space.

-The Nature of Gravity and How it can be Influenced.

-The Effect of Weightlessness on the Human Organism.

-The Physical Behavior of Objects when Gravity is Missing.

-Without Air.

-Perpetual Silence Prevails in Empty Space.

-Sunshine during Nighttime Darkness.

-Unlimited Visibility.

-Without Heat.

-Designing the Space Station.

-The Solar Power Plant.

-Supplying Light.

-Supplying Air and Heat.

-Water Supply.

-Long Distance Communications.

-Means of Controlling the Space Station.

-Partitioning the Space Station into Three Entities.

-The Habitat Wheel.

-The Observatory and the Machine Room.

-Providing for Long-Distance Communications and Safety.

-Partitioning the Space Station into Two Entities.

-The Space Suit.

-The Trip to the Space Station.

-Special Physical Experiments.

-Telescopes of Enormous Size.

-Observing and Researching the Earth's Surface.

-Exploring the Stars.

-A Giant Floating Mirror.

-The Most Dreadful Weapon.

-To Distant Celestial Bodies.

-The Technology of Space Travel.

-Launching from Earth's Surface.

-The Space Station as a base for Travel into Deep Space.

-The Attainability of the Neighboring Planets.

-Distant Worlds.

-Will It Ever be Possible to Reach Fixed Stars?

-The Expected Course of Development of Space Travel.

-Final Remarks.

-Index.

-Author of the Foreword.

-The Editors.

-The NASA History Series.

OUR REVIEW

Although it may appear to be incredible, such a seminal work as Noordung's is had never been translated into English and made available to the non-German speaking readership. There have been some partial translations made by some astronautic associations, yet the original text only appeared in book format in the German language. Now, after more than half a century, the project that had for so long been cherised has finally seen the light. NASA, through its History Office, has comissioned its translation to the firm SCITRAN. The people in charge of looking after the perfect technical resolution of the project have been Ernst Stuhlinger and J.D. Hunley, together with Jennifer Garland.

The result is, on the other hand, impeccable. Noordung's text discusses almost all the problems in spaceflight at an era when all of them, despite the enthusiasm on the part of the people involved, were far from solved. His treatment, together with the wonderfully clarifying figures in the book, make this volume into a perfect reference book for the expert reader, a work we imagine must have awakened a certain amount of enthusiasm when it was made avaliable for the first time. Even though the author is sometimes a little too generous and optimistic about his proposals, he must be acknowledged a really intense effort at synthesis, which meant his becoming one of the greatest pioneers, one of the fathers of modern astronautics, as well as one of its main divulgers. We can therefore enjoy the initiative of its present publication by NASA and we hope that this will be the beginning of a gradual approach and rediscovery of the classics.