Pedro Paulet

Pedro Paulet Mostajo

Pedro Eleodoro Paulet Mostajo (born July 2, 1874 in Tiabaya near Arequipa , Peru ; † January 30, 1945 in Buenos Aires , Argentina ) was a Peruvian chemist, architect, diplomat and visionary of space travel. According to his own statements, he developed and built a rocket engine with liquid fuel as early as 1895.

Life

Paulet was born into a poor family of farm workers; his father died when he was a child. Pedro was promoted by the French lazarist priest Hippolyte Duhamel, and taught in his school. After graduating from school, he studied at the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín in Arequipa.

A scholarship gave Paulet the opportunity to go to Paris in 1894 and study engineering and architecture there. Among other things, he heard public lectures by the chemist Marcelin Berthelot and enrolled with him as a student in 1898. In 1901 he completed his studies with a diploma.

From 1900 Paulet worked in the Peruvian consulate in Paris, in 1902 he became the Peruvian consul in Antwerp (Belgium). In 1904 Paulet was commissioned by the Peruvian government to found and run a trade school, the Escuela de Artes y Oficios in Lima . At the same time, from 1906 he published the journal Ilustración Peruana , which dealt with technical and scientific topics and was aimed primarily at young people.

At the end of 1910 Paulet resigned from his position as director and went back to Europe. He lived mostly in Paris, but also in London . From 1921 Paulet pursued his diplomatic career again, first as the Peruvian consul in Dresden , from 1929 as the Peruvian consul general in Rotterdam ( Netherlands ) and from 1932 to 1935 as the consul general in Yokohama ( Japan ). In 1935 he returned to Peru. There he founded and headed the trade department of the Peruvian Foreign Ministry. In 1941 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Buenos Aires, where he died in 1945.

Inventions

According to his own statements, Paulet had already experimented with rocket engines with liquid fuel around the turn of the century and would have beaten the American Robert Goddard by around 30 years. However, there are no external sources for this. The information is based on a letter from Paulet published by the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio in October 1927 and an interview with Paulet published in the Argentine newspaper La Cronica on April 18, 1944.

Paulet said he had asked the Peruvian government for financial support, but it was denied. Paulet gave the original plans to the British Embassy in Lima in 1936, but never got them back. Paulet allegedly placed an engine in the care of his eldest son Héctor in 1941 before he left for Buenos Aires. When Héctor left the country during World War II because his Japanese wife was expelled from Peru, the engine was lost in his absence.

1895: Paulet engine

The Paulet engine was powered by dinitrogen tetroxide (N ₂ O ₄ ) and benzene (C ₆ H ₆ ), which were only mixed in the combustion chamber and ignited electrically. The combustion chamber made of steel with vanadium (a novelty at the time) was conical, 10 cm high and also had a diameter of 10 cm. The engine had a mass of about 2.5 kg. At 300 ignitions per minute, Paulet measured a thrust of up to 1000 N with a dynamometer . The operating time was almost an hour. Because of the danger of the experiments and for personal reasons not described in detail, Paulet stopped the experiments in 1897. The first prototype was damaged in the First World War.

1900: Girándula engine

In his letter to El Comercio, Paulet describes another development: the Girándula engine. It consisted of the wheel of a bicycle to which three rockets were attached tangentially. The fuel was fed through a perforated ring through pipes along the spokes. Paulet used panklastite as fuel , which was invented by the French chemist Eugène Turpin . When Paulet tried to determine the maximum RPM, an explosion occurred that tore Paulet's left eardrum and later made him numb. Paulet were banned from further explosive experiments in the laboratory. Paulet then gave up practical work with rocket engines.

1902: torpedo plane

During his stay in Belgium, Paulet worked on a design for a rocket plane, which he called the Torpedo. It should take off and land vertically. Since it was to be operated primarily outside the atmosphere, neither propellers nor tail units were provided. The fuselage should be egg-shaped, and swiveling rockets should be attached to the equator so that the cabin could remain aligned in both vertical and horizontal flight. The cabin should accommodate three or four people. This plane should work underwater too.

Publication and reception

Paulet's studies and experiments did not become known to the public until October 7, 1927, when the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio published his letter to the editor. He was referring to a report from July 24th about Max Valier and the German Association for Space Travel (VfR). This letter was summarized, translated and distributed in professional circles by Alexander Scherschevsky . Scherschevsky was Russian, but lived in Germany and published popular science books, including “The rocket for drive and flight. A generally understandable introduction to the rocket problem ” from 1928, in which he mentioned Paulet and his inventions between 1899 and 1903.

Paulet was also mentioned as a pioneer of space travel by Max Valier in his book Raketenfahrt (1928), the Russian Nikolai Rynin in his nine-volume encyclopedia (1928 to 1932) and in the French magazine La Science et la Vie (“Verrons-nous, un jour , l'avion fusée? “, n ° 170, August 1931).

However, Paulet's descriptions also met with skepticism. The Austrian physicist Hans Thirring wrote in 1934 about the question “Can you fly into space?”. He mentioned Paulet's claims, but misrepresented some details. He left it open whether Paulet's statements were “based on the truth” or a “newspaper duck”.

In 1947 the American rocket expert James Wyld mentioned that the first rocket engine with liquid propellant may have been made by Paulet in 1895. Wyld relied on Scherschevsky, who had summarized Paulet's Spanish letter in German.

Wernher von Braun , who designed the rockets for the Apollo program at NASA , wrote the book History of Rocketry & Space Travel together with Frederick Ordway in 1966 . In the first edition Paulet was mentioned as a pioneer of the fluid power plant, in later editions this passage was shortened.

controversy

Paulet himself did not publish anything about his studies and experiments, nor did he submit a single patent. According to his own statements, he still found the fuel too dangerous and wanted to find a safer and cheaper option. He also did not see himself as the inventor of the torpedo airplane because he had never made it a reality. The inventor is said to be the first to fly in a rocket-powered aircraft.

Paulet's research was the subject of the symposium on space history on October 10, 1969 on the occasion of the 20th International Astronautical Congress in Mar del Plata . The American Frederick Ordway explained in his lecture "The alleged contributions of Pedro E. Paulet to liquid-propellant rocketry" that Paulet's fame is based solely on his letter to the editor from 1927, which was then translated and summarized neither witnesses nor documents that could be taken as evidence that Paulet actually carried out these experiments 30 years before Goddard, but Paulet's claim cannot be refuted either. Pedro Mateo Sancho, the chairman of the Spanish Space Association, then proposed to the Peruvian delegation to investigate this question more closely, but this did not yield any significant new findings.

Paulet achieved greater awareness outside of professional circles in 2012 through the filmmaker Alvaro Mejía Salvatierra , who, after eight years of research, presented En busca de Ordway and received a prize for documentary films. With this film, Mejía's intention was to provide all the indications that Paulet was indeed a pioneer in space travel.

Mejía takes the position that Ordway wanted to postulate the American Robert Goddard as the inventor of the liquid rocket during the Cold War. This would not only discredit Paulet, but also the German scientists who would have benefited from Paulet's experience between the wars. The background was to conceal Werner von Braun's Nazi past. Ordway falsified Paulet's story that the content of Ordway's lecture should not be taken over without reflection.

Paulet remains controversial. Some encyclopedias point to the unclear documented situation, while in Peru Paulet's achievements and his influence on modern space travel are not in doubt.

Honors

• In Peru, July 2nd, Paulet's birthday, is celebrated as National Aviation Day.
• For the 100th birthday of Paulet, the Peruvian Post issued a special stamp on November 28, 1974 with a value of 8  soles .
• On September 10, 1985, Belgian astronomer Henri Debehogne discovered a main belt asteroid named (4443) Paulet .
• The Peruvian sounding rocket Paulet I is named after him.
• One year after the start of Paulet I, Peruvian Posts issued two stamps worth 3 soles each  showing Paulet and the rocket.
• In the Aviation Museum of Lima, a room is dedicated to Paulet's work.
• A golden statue of Paulet was erected at the entrance to his birthplace, Tiabaya.
• Google honored Paulet with a Google Doodle for Peru on July 2, 2011, Pedro Paulet's 137th birthday.

family

Paulet was married to Luisa Wilquet and had seven children, two of whom died in childhood. His daughter Megan Paulet Wilquet was allowed to press the start button of the Peruvian sounding rocket Paulet I in December 2006 . His great-niece Sara Madueño Paulet de Vásquez wrote an article about him in the 21st century magazine.

Web links

• Alvaro Mejia: Pedro Paulet: Peruvian Pioneer of the Space Age. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics AIAA 2010-2217 (PDF)
• La vuelta al mundo de Pedro Paulet. Pedro Paulet blog run by Alvaro Mejia (Spanish)

literature

• Megan Paulet: Pedro Paulet (1874–1945), padre de la astronáutica. CONCYTEC, Lima 1988.
• Sara Madueño: Pedro Paulet: Peruvian Space and Rocket Pioneer. In: 21st Century Volume 14, No. 4 (Winter 2001-2002), translated by Valerie Rush and Carlos Potes ( 21stcenturysciencetech.com ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ El Popular: El legado de Pedro Paulet. February 20, 2014, accessed September 30, 2014 (Spanish). 
2. ^ Sara Madueño Paulet de Vásquez: Pedro Paulet: Peruvian Space and Rocket Pioneer. In: 21st Century, Volume 14, No. 4 Winter 2001-2002. 2001, accessed October 15, 2014 (English, translated by Valerie Rush and Carlos Potes). 
3. ↑ Hace 40 años un Peruano, Precursor de la Moderna Aeronavegación, inventó el Avión sin Hélices
4. ↑ ^{a b} Guillermo O. Descalzo: Pedro Paulet Mostajo. Un Visionario Peruano. In: Air & Space Power Journal - Español, Tercer Trimestre 2007. US Air Force, August 14, 2007, accessed September 30, 2014 (Spanish). 
5. ↑ Paulet gave the thrust as "90 kilograms".
6. ↑ Hans Thirring: Can you fly into space? In: Old Problems - New Solutions in the Exact Sciences. Five Viennese lectures . Second cycle. Franz Deuticke, Leipzig and Vienna 1934, p. 40 ("Because of the danger of the experiments with strong fuels and for other personal reasons, the experiments were stopped in 1897").
7. ↑ Hans Thirring: Can you fly into space? In: Old Problems - New Solutions in the Exact Sciences. Five Viennese lectures . Second cycle. Franz Deuticke, Leipzig and Vienna 1934, p. 39-40 (Thirring moves Paulet's experiments to Peru instead of France and dates the letter to the editor to 1925 instead of 1927): “If these statements are based on truth and are not a newspaper duck, one must say that Paulet was then, almost 40 years ago , had achieved a lead in his field that the technology of the other designers has not been able to catch up to this day. "
8. ↑ James H. Wyld: The Liquid-Propellant Rocket Motor - Past, Present, and Future . In: Journal of the American Rocket Society . No. 70 , June 1947, p. 2–15 , doi : 10.2514 / 8.4148 (English): “Paulet did not publish an account of his work until 1927 in an obscure news article in the Lima, Peru 'El Comercio', so that the validity of his claim may be rather doubtful ... "
9. ^ Sara Madueño Paulet de Vásquez: monografia de pedro paulet. August 17, 2012, accessed on October 9, 2014 (Spanish, from the Spanish version of the article by Sara Madueño Paulet de Vásquez): “Pero decidí no publicar nada al respecto, ni a solicitar una patente, ya que a pesar de que el Cohete parecía perfecto para mí, el explosivo utilizado era muy peligroso y mi intención erahabenrar un lugar más seguro y más barato. " 
10. ^ Sara Madueño Paulet de Vásquez: monografia de pedro paulet. August 17, 2012, accessed on October 9, 2014 (Spanish, from the Spanish version of the article by Sara Madueño Paulet de Vásquez): “A pesar de que no tengo información de que alguien antes que yo se preocupó de un avión-cohete torpedo , no tratan de reivindicar la paternidad de este invento, porque, como con todos los proyectos, no es válida hasta que se dio cuenta. El inventor del avión cohete será el primero en volar en un aparato propulsado por cohetes. " 
11. ^ Rocketry & Astronautics. (PDF) Hervé Moulin, 2004, p. 102 , accessed on September 28, 2014 (English). 
12. ^ Pedro Mateo Sancho: Encuentro con Frederick Ordway. (PDF) In: La Vanguardia Española. October 12, 1969, p. 22 , accessed September 26, 2014 (Spanish). 
13. ↑ Fernando Gimeno: Un documental reivindicará al peruano Paulet como pionero de la astronáutica. (No longer available online.) El Correo, April 10, 2012, archived from the original on October 29, 2014 ; Retrieved on October 15, 2014 (Spanish): "La intención es presentarle todas las evidencias que señalan a Paulet como el pionero de la astronáutica" Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
14. ↑ Álvaro Mejía S .: Pedro Paulet y el origen de los cohetes de combustible líquido. Verdadera Historia de la Astronautica Mundial y la deuda con Paulet. In: Clío. Historia y actualidad del Perú y el mundo. January 23, 2011, accessed on October 15, 2014 (Spanish): "El motivo de fondo: encubrir el pasado nazi de Wernher Von Braun, artífice del Apolo XI" 
15. ^ Alvaro Mejía: Operación: Luna. In: La vuelta al mundo de Pedro Paulet. July 20, 2010, accessed September 24, 2014 (Spanish). 
16. ^ David Darling: Paulet, Pedro E. (1874-1945). In: Encyclopedia of Science. April 17, 2014, accessed on October 9, 2014 (English): “Had Paulet's work been authenticated, he would today be considered the undisputed father of liquid propellant rocketry. As it is that title is more commonly attributed to Robert Goddard. " 
17. ↑ El Poular: El legado de Pedro Paulet. February 20, 2014, accessed on September 26, 2014 (Spanish): "Además, en nuestro país se ha declarado el Día Nacional de la Aeronáutica el 2 de julio, fecha de su nacimiento." 
18. ^ Andina: Celebrarán mañana Día Nacional de la Aeronáutica en Parque Domodossola de Miraflores. (No longer available online.) June 30, 2011, formerly in the original ; Retrieved September 26, 2014 (Spanish).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
19. ^ Stamp catalog: Stamp ‹UPU - Pedro E. Paulet. colnect.com, accessed September 24, 2014 . 
20. ↑ Jet Propulsion Laboratory: 4443 Paulet (1985 RD4). In: JPL Small-Body Database Browser. September 4, 2012, accessed September 23, 2014 . 
21. ^ Stamp catalog: Briefmarke ‹Launching of the Space rocket-probe Paulet I. colnect.com, accessed on October 17, 2014 . 
22. ↑ Museo Aeronáutico del Perú: El Museo Aeronáutico del Perú. March 21, 2010, accessed September 23, 2014 (Spanish). 
23. ↑ Luis Eduardo Podestá: El pionero de los viajes espaciales fue hijo de campesinos de Arequipa. July 3, 2011, accessed on September 23, 2014 (Spanish, with picture): “Solo a la entrada de Tiabaya, en una pequeña placita remodelada hace unos años, hay una imagen dorada que nos recuerda que el sabio Pedro Paulet Mostajo, nació y vivió allí los primeros años de su vida. " 
24. ↑ Google: Pedro Paulet's 137th Birthday. July 2, 2011, accessed September 24, 2014 .