Max Valier

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Max Valier in the rocket car , 1929

Max Valier (born February 9, 1895 in Bozen , † May 17, 1930 in Berlin ) was an astronomer and writer . He is regarded as an important pioneer of rocket technology and at the same time as its first casualty.

biography

Max Valier's birth house

Max Valier was already enthusiastic about astronomy during his school days at the Franciscan high school in Bozen . In 1913 he began studying astronomy , meteorology , mathematics and physics at the University of Innsbruck . Due to the First World War , he was drafted into the Austrian military in 1915. There he initially served as a weather observer, later in air reconnaissance using tethered balloons and from 1917 in aircraft testing.

After the war, Valier resumed his studies and passed his state examination in astronomy in Vienna. He also worked as a science and science fiction writer. I.a. he published the story "Spiridion Illuxt" in which he foresaw the atomic bomb . In 1923, Valier was inspired by Hermann Oberth's book "The Rocket for Planetary Spaces" to write a generally understandable treatise on space travel. With Oberth's support, "The Advance into World Space" was created (published in 1924), in which a program for the development of rocket technology was described. This work was a great success, six editions appeared by 1930.

From 1916, as he writes in a letter to the inventor Hermann Ganswindt (1856–1934), he advocated the controversial world ice theory of the Austrian engineer Hanns Hörbiger . Even then, this was largely classified as scientifically untenable. For this reason, among other things, his dissertation on a lunar crater, which he had submitted to the University of Vienna , was rejected.

In 1927 he founded the Space Agency in Breslau together with Johannes Winkler . In the period that followed, many space pioneers of the Weimar Republic gathered in this association.

Finding a financier to carry out his missile plans proved difficult. Valier turned to numerous companies and associations, but it was not until the end of 1927, after many disappointments with the car industrialist, sportsman and racing driver Fritz von Opel , that he was able to win a financially strong sponsor. From 1928 a number of test vehicles were built. They were driven by powder rockets , which Friedrich Wilhelm Sander delivered, owner of a factory for signaling and rescue rockets from Wesermünde. Valier saw the rocket cars that resulted from the collaboration with the "fast Fritz" as a first preliminary stage for the space rocket. However, Opel only sensed an immense advertising effect for his company.

Opel RAK 2

Because of this difference of opinion, the collaboration was soon discontinued. Valier now developed rocket rail cars and rocket sledges and contacted the Espenlaub company in order to design the first rocket plane at Düsseldorf airport, which was built with Valier's ideas, but without involving him in the flight. On the frozen Lake Starnberg , Valier set a speed record of over 400 km / h in 1929 with the RAK BOB rocket sled . In January 1930 he received a laboratory in the Heylandt works in Berlin , which specialized in the production of liquid oxygen. There he carried out successful tests with liquid fuels, which - according to his assistant Walter Riedel - became fundamental for further rocket development in Germany. On May 17, 1930, Max Valier died in an explosion during the test run of a new type of engine, because he had agreed to conduct experiments with paraffin for the Shell company . He is thus the first to die in space travel .

Max Valier was buried in the Westfriedhof in Munich .

Reception, honors

Bilingual memorial plaque on Max Valier's birthplace in Bozen

Walter Riedel carried out Max Valier's experiments first in the Kummersdorf Army Research Center and then in Peenemünde . In Bolzano a technical college and an association of amateur astronomers are named after him. Together with the Oskar von Miller commercial college in Merano, these two institutions developed the Max Valier Sat small satellite , which was launched on June 23, 2017. In addition, streets in Bolzano and Munich and the only public observatory in South Tyrol ( Max Valier observatory in Gummer, Gde. Karneid ) bear his name. There is also a Max-Valier-Strasse in Seis am Schlern (municipality of Castelrotto), where the family's summer resort is located. In 1971 the Valiergasse in Vienna- Simmering (11th district) was named after him.

Publications (selection)

  • The star's path and essence: a common introduction to celestial science. 2nd, completely revised edition, R. Voigtländer's Verlag, Leipzig 1926 (first edition 1924).
  • Rocket Ride: A Technical Possibility. 2nd edition, at the same time 6th edition of Advance into World Space , R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1930.
  • Introduction to world ice theory: the riddles d. Sunshine: according to Ing. Hörbiger . Hachmeister & Thal, Leipzig 1927.

See also

literature

  • Ilse Essers : Max Valier - A pioneer of space travel . VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1968 ( history of technology in single representations No. 5, ISSN  0082-2361 ).
  • Fred Gütschow: Max Valier - The Tyrolean rocket pioneer had an accident 50 years ago . In: Flight Revue . July 1980, ISSN  0015-4547 , pp. 55-58.
  • Ernst Attlmayr: Tyrolean pioneers of technology. 35 images of life . Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck / Munich 1968, pp. 80–87.
  • Michael Graf Wolff von Metternich: German rocket vehicles on road, rail and ice 1928 to 1931 . Verlag Sieger, Lorch 1997
  • Walter Gerhard Brandecker: A life for an idea. The rocket pioneer Max Valier . Union 1961
  • Linus Hauser : Critique of the Neomythischen Vernunft Vol. 3. The fictions of science on the way into the 21st century. Paderborn 2016. pp. 314–322.

Web links

Commons : Max Valier  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Max Valier  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ilse Esser: Max Valier. A pioneer in space travel. Bozen (Athesia) 1980, p. 27.
  2. ↑ “Die Rakete”, supplement January-June 1927, p. 28.
  3. ↑ Bayerische - Flugzeug - Historiker eV - Home
  4. ^ Walter Riedel: Rocket Developments with Liquid Propellants. From the early days with Max Valier to the A4 (V2) long-range rocket (1930 to 1942). A brief technical overview. Written at Westcott near Aylesbury July 1950, Derby (UK) 2005.
  5. ↑ Gunter Krebs: Max Valier. In: Gunter's Space Page. June 23, 2017, accessed June 23, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Valier, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South Tyrolean writer , astronomer and rocket- builder pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Bolzano
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1930
Place of death Berlin