Herman Potočnik

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Hermann Potočnik as kuk first lieutenant

Herman (n) Potočnik (also known under the pseudonym Hermann Noordung ; * December 22, 1892 in Pola / Pula in what was then the margraviate of Istria in Austro-Hungarian Austria , today Croatia ; † August 27, 1929 in Vienna ) was a space theorist. He is considered a pioneer and visionary of modern space travel .

Life

Potočnik was one of four children of Slovenian parents and grew up in Maribor (Marburg an der Drau) in what was then the Duchy of Styria after the death of his father in 1894 . Later he attended  military schools in Moravia - probably with the support of his uncle, a major general in the Austro-Hungarian Army . From 1910 to 1913 he studied at the Technical Military Academy in Mödling near Vienna in Lower Austria and graduated with the rank of engineer and sub-lieutenant. He specialized in bridge and railroad construction.

During the First World War he served in Galicia , Serbia and Bosnia and was promoted to first lieutenant in 1915 . After the war he was retired  by the new Austrian state in 1919 - already with the rank of captain - because of tuberculosis . He began studying electrical engineering and mechanical engineering at the Vienna University of Technology . As an engineer, he devoted himself exclusively to rocket and space technology from 1925 . Due to his chronic illness, he remained unmarried and without a job; he lived with his brother Adolf in Vienna.

Rotating wheel-shaped space station , designed by Herman Potočnik
The "Wohnrad", part of the three-part space station design

At the end of 1928 Potočnik published his only book under the pseudonym Hermann Noordung , The Problem of Navigating Space - The Rocket Motor , which his Berlin publisher Richard Carl Schmidt had printed with the official year of publication 1929. On 188 pages and with 100 illustrations, Potočnik made suggestions for the implementation of space stations and geostationary satellites . He described in detail the space station, which consists of three modules: the "living wheel", which was supposed to rotate permanently to generate artificial gravity, a power plant that was supposed to generate energy from solar radiation via parabolic mirrors , and an observatory . The three parts should be connected by cables.

Potočnik's idea of ​​a so-called “standing satellite” at an altitude of about 36,000 km, which can be constantly seen over a certain point on the earth, was later realized in the form of telecommunications and weather satellites in geosynchronous orbit .

The book was translated into Russian in 1935, into Slovenian in 1986 and into English in 1999 by NASA .

Potočnik's ideas were taken up for the first time by the Association for Space Travel (VfR), whose member Wernher von Braun published a concept for a space station in 1952. In the contemporary Viennese environment of the author, however, the book was dismissed as a fantasy.

Potočnik died completely impoverished in 1929 at the age of 36 of pneumonia in Vienna. His obituary, which appeared in newspapers in Maribor , recognized his military and academic degrees, but not his work on space travel.

In September 2012, a cultural center for European space technologies (KSEVT) was opened as an art project in Vitanje (Weitenstein) in Lower Styria ( Štajerska ), where Potočnik's grandparents had lived, with the help of the EU and the Slovenian Ministry of Culture should deal with. The architecture of the building is based on the first space station that a human being had thought up at a time when conquering space was still a thought experiment.

Appreciation

On the occasion of his 100th birthday, the Austrian Post issued a special postage stamp in 1992.

Fonts

  • The problem of navigating space. The rocket engine. RC Schmidt & Co., Berlin 1929, online at dlib.si, reprint: Turia and Kant, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-85132-060-3

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Problem of Space Travel, Table of Contents. Retrieved May 24, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Herwig G. Höller: 2010: The year in which Vitanje made contact. In: Falter. Weekly newspaper, Vienna, No. 2, January 13, 2010, p. 52.
  3. ^ Joachim Riedl : Spaceship Vitanje. In: The time . Hamburg, No. 38, September 13, 2012, p. 18.
  4. ↑ Entry on the 100th birthday of the space pioneer Hermann Potocnik in the Austria Forum  (as a stamp illustration)

literature

Web links

Commons : Herman Potočnik  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Potočnik, Herman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Potočnik, Hermann; Noordung, Hermann (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian space theorist
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Pula
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 1929
Place of death Vienna