Herman oberth biography

Sign In. Hermann Julius Oberth. He is known for Woman in the Moon and Chariots of the Gods He was married to Mathilde Hummel. Spouse Mathilde Hummel July 6, - her death, 4 children. His mother, Valerie Emma Krassner Oberth, was the daughter of a doctor who had prophesied accurately in July that humans would land on the Moon in a hundred years.

In an autobiographical piece published in Astronautics journal, Oberth recalled that "at the age of eleven, I received from my mother as a gift the famous books, From the Earth to the Moon and Travel to the Moon by Jules Verne [—], which I … read at least five or six times and, finally, knew by heart. Oberth began studying medicine at the University of Munich in Germany inbut he also attended lectures in physics the study of energy and matter and their interactions and related subjects at the nearby technical institute.

His education was interrupted by World War I —18in which he served with an infantry regiment soldiers trained and armed to fight on foot.

Herman oberth biography: Hermann Julius Oberth was an Austro-Hungarian-born

After being wounded inhe was assigned to a reserve hospital, where he continued experiments with weightlessness that he had begun as a teenager. He also experimented on himself with drugs, including scopolamine, which is still used to treat motion sickness. When Oberth left the army he worked on solutions to the problems posed by space flight. In he submitted a proposal to the German Ministry of Armament for a long-range rocket that could be used as a weapon.

Powered by ethyl alcohol, water, and liquid air, the rocket was larger and less complicated than the V-2 missile, which Oberth later developed with engineer Wernher von Braun —; see entry. The ministry turned down Oberth's proposal. On June 6,Oberth married Mathilde Hummel, with whom he later had four children. Two of the children died during World War II — In Oberth resumed his schooling, this time studying physics at the University of Klausenburg in Transylvania.

He submitted his doctoral dissertation a long research paper on a specialized topic on rockets and spaceflight theory at Heidelberg, but it was not accepted. From until Oberth taught physics and mathematics at secondary schools in Transylvania. In the University of Klausenburg granted him the title of professor. Hermann Oberth enjoyed reading science fiction.

It is a tale about the adventures of members of the Baltimore Gun Club, who travel to the Moon onboard a gigantic cannon that they had made into a rocket. In the final chapter the cannon becomes a satellite an object that orbits in spacean event that is witnessed by their friends J. Belfast and J. Maston "thanks to the gigantic reflector of Long's Peak!

At the close of the chapter Maston contemplates the significance of the Gun Club's achievement:. When the dispatch from Long's Peak had once become known, there was but one universal feeling of surprise and alarm. Was it possible to go to the aid of these bold travelers? They had air enough for two months; they had victuals enough for twelve; —but after that?

There was only one man who would not admit that the situation was desperate—he alone had confidence; and that was their devoted friend J. Besides, he never let them get out of sight. His home was henceforth the herman oberth biography at Long's Peak; his horizon, the mirror of that immense reflector. As soon as the moon rose above the horizon, he immediately caught her in the field of the telescope; he never let her go for an instant out of his sight, and followed her assiduously [steadily worked at tracking the Moon] in her course through the stellar spaces.

He watched with untiring patience the passage of the projectile across her silvery disc, and really the worthy man remained in perpetual communication with his three friends, whom he did not despair of seeing again some day. With that, one can do anything; and you will see that, some day, they will come out all right. Although filled with complicated equations, Oberth's book sold well.

He set forth the basic principles of space flight and discussed possible solutions to a number of specific problems. For instance, he examined such matters as liquid-propellant rocket construction and the use of propellants for different stages of rockets. A liquid-propellant rocket is fired with liquid fuel. Prior to the twentieth century rockets were fired with gun powder, known as solid fuel.

He discussed the use of pumps to inject propellants into a rocket's combustion chamber and speculated on the effects of space flight upon humans. He also proposed the herman oberth biography of a space station. In Oberth published a considerably expanded version of this book, now titled Wege zur Raumschiffahrt Ways to Spaceflight. Both the German version and the English translation of the book provided inspiration to other spaceflight pioneers.

Influenced by Verne's books and ideas, Oberth constructed his first model rocket as a school student of In his youthful experiments, he arrived independently at the concept of the multistage rocket, but lacked, at the time, the resources to pursue his idea on any but a theoretical level. InOberth undertook the study of medicine in Munich, participating afterwards in World War I as a military medic.

Oberth was later to say that the most thing he learned from that experience was that he did not want to become a doctor. After the war, he remained in Germany - his home city was now part of Romania - and resumed his studies at the university, but this time studying physics.

Herman oberth biography: Hermann Oberth was a German

Inhis doctoral dissertation on rocket science was rejected as "utopian". InOberth would expand this to a page work entitled Wege zur Raumschiffahrt or Ways to Spaceflight. Oberth commented later that he made the deliberate choice not to write another doctoral dissertation: "I refrained from writing another one, thinking to myself: Never mind, I will prove that I am able to become a greater scientist than some of you, even without the title of doctor.

October Technology and Culture. Johns Hopkins University Press : JSTOR S2CID Archived from the original on 15 October Retrieved 3 October Oberth became a German citizen in The Rocket Team. Apogee Books Space Series Space Technology. Greenwood Press. ISBN Rockets Into Space. Harvard University Press. Archived PDF from the original on 9 October Archived from the original on 11 September Retrieved 19 October Oldenburg, Munich, Germany.

The Rocket into Planetary Space. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg. Ways to Spaceflight. Retrieved 21 December — via archive. Blosset, Smithsonian Annals of FlightNo. Archived from the original on 16 October Retrieved 16 October The Rocket and the Reich. ISBN X. Hermann Oberth, Leben-Werk-Wirkung. Menschen im Weltraum in German. Econ Duesseldorf Germany.

Man into Space.

Herman oberth biography: Hermann Julius Oberth was an Austro-Hungarian-born

Der Weltraumspiegel in German. Kriterion Bucharest. Revue in German. Hamburg: Bauer. Weltbild in German. The Moon Car. The electric spaceship. Links, Berlin, FRG. Motorbuch, Stuttgart, FRG. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 24 September Retrieved 10 April