Magdeburg starting device (10-L)
The Magdeburg launch device (10-L) , also known as the Magdeburg pilot rocket and 10-L (for the 10 liters of liquid fuel it contains ), was intended to ensure the first manned rocket flight in history. Despite successful tests, the flight originally planned for March 1933 with the pilot Hans Hüter never took place. After several delays, the project was finally stopped in 1934 when the National Socialists prohibited all private rocket attempts (including the Magdeburg experiment).
The idea
The project was initiated in 1932 by the Magdeburg businessman Franz Mengering , a supporter of the hollow world theory . He commissioned Rudolf Nebel with the development of a manned rocket in order to reach the moon 5000 km away . Nebel, on the other hand, thought it was only realistic to develop a rocket that could lift a person 1000 m and then fly a maximum of 20 km high.
Development and testing
The development of the rocket began in August 1932 and was carried out by the team around Rudolf Nebel , consisting of Klaus Riedel , Hans Hüter , Kurt Heinisch , Hans Bermüller , Paul Ehmayr and Helmuth Zoike . Hans Hüter was planned as the pilot. Tests on the ground took place until March 1933, and starting tests began in June 1933 - first in Mose , and later at Tegeler See and Schwielowsee . The last documented test was in September 1933.
cancellation
The activities of the Space Ship Association and at the Berlin- Reinickendorf rocket airfield have been under strict surveillance since the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933. At the end of 1933 the Gestapo confiscated all documents, in June 1934 the organization and the rocket airfield were closed. Since then, private rocket tests have been banned - all activities were immediately continued under the patronage of the German Wehrmacht in the Kummersdorf Army Research Center , later in the Peenemünde Army Research Center .
swell
- Frank-E. Rietz: Die Magdeburger Pilotenrakete , mdv, ISBN 3-932776-21-6
- Frederick C. Durant III, George S. James: Smithsonian Annals of Flight No. 10 , Smithsonian Institution Press