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Between Sept. 3-8, 1951, the
British Interplanetary Society held the Second International
Congress on Astronautics in London. The Congress was
attended by Prof. Hermann Oberth, one of the three
scientists who independently worked out and published the
basic theories of astronautics (the others being Konstantin
Tsiolkovsky, in Russia in the 1890's but not published till
the 1920's, and Robert Goddard in the USA, who published
just after Oberth). The appearance of Oberth's "Die Rakete"
in 1924 led to the formation in Germany of the VfR, the
first spaceflight society, and so to the German rocket
programme which was taken over by the USA after World War
II. His second book "The Road to Space Travel" (1929) was
followed by a commission from Fritz Lang to be technical
advisor to the movie Frau in Mond, which was shown at the
Glasgow Film Theatre in 1979 as part of our 'High Frontier'
exhibition programme.
At the Congress Prof. Oberth had a
reunion with Oscar Schwiglhofer, who had studied physics
under Oberth in Transylvania before the War. Oscar had
dreamed of founding a spaceflight society himself, and now
he was settled in Scotland he decided to set about it; after
a 2½ year campaign he succeeded in organising the first
meeting of the BIS Scottish branch, which was to become
independent as ASTRA ten years later. The following year
Oberth presented Oscar with a first edition of his new book
"Man in Space", which incorporated many of his advanced
designs including the 'Moon Car' (published as a separate
book in 1959) on which he had worked at the US Army
establishment in Huntsville, Alabama, 1955-59, before
retiring to run a spaceflight museum in Feucht, West
Germany.
Professor Oberth became the first
Honorary Member of ASTRA on March 27th 1979, coincidentally
the same date on which the Inland Revenue at last recognised
us as a charity. "New Worlds for Old", which was dedicated
to him at Oscar's request, came out in May, but
unfortunately he died in December of that
year.
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 STEVEN
PROSTERMAN
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JOHN
MACVEY
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