An essay about the doctrine(s) and visualisations in 20th century SciFi – as an addendum to the discussion in my earlier posts about Chris Hadfield from the ISS, Peenemünde and the non-existence of futuristic messages and visions in the current StarTrek.

Moon flight visions in audiovisual popular media

In modern times, especially in the 20th century, the age of technology also saw the beginning of the age of space travel. Like no other technology, this achievement influenced the lives and thoughts of all people. Not only does space travel itself span the entire globe, but in the media age the successes of individuals can also be immediately transmitted to all people. When a man walks across the moon, everyone around the world can watch him with just one second’s delay!

This article is intended to illustrate this ‘gigantic leap forward for mankind’ (as Neil Armstrong said) in the flow of time and use it as an example to underpin the thesis that visions are born out of dreams and are often first realised through television in popular media. The relationship between technological development and science fiction is described here as an endless tango, in which the couple passionately wrestle so that sometimes one and sometimes the other gains the upper hand – but only for a short time, so that neither ever wins or loses, but they always inspire and inspire each other.

Sources: The dream of flying to the moon is probably as old as mankind, as this celestial body is the only one that can be perceived by the unarmed eye as non-point-shaped and therefore representational. Evidence of such fantasies can be traced back to antiquity: in myths and fairy tales, the dream of flying, including to the stars, is fuelled in prose and images: Phaeton, Icarus, da Vinci’s construction drawings of a flying machine, Kepler’s Somnium, Verne’s Voyage à la lune and Autour de la lune, Peter’s Moon Journey by Gert Basswitz . . . these are just a few examples. From the almost endless material on this subject, I would like to limit myself here to the 20th century and single out the legacy of the German rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth. The dissertation ‘The Rocket to Planetary Space’ by this far-sighted engineer, who is often glorified as the ‘father of space travel’, was rejected because the reviewers doubted its seriousness. What read like a utopia to them and then actually sold as a bestseller (printed at their own expense) led to a novel and a film of the same name, ‘Woman in the Moon’ – and finally became a reality more than four decades later.

The tango of science and fiction in the 1920s

The formulas and pages of calculations in the [rocket] were certainly not what triggered the feeling of utopia. They were probably skimmed over by his public audience and only served as a visualisation of the seriousness of the visions at the end of the book. However, the fact that several groundbreaking books appeared in the mid-1920s made waves: Oberth’s [Rocket] was followed by Die Erreichbarkeit der Himmelskörper by Walter Hohmann, an engineer from Essen, and Vorstoß in den Weltraum by Max Valier. According to his own statement, ‘its sole purpose was […] to present in a generally understandable form what Professor Oberth had already explained in a highly scientific manner a year earlier in a work published by the same publisher, Die Rakete . . .’ published by the same publisher. . . Success of the brochure [means: Valier’s book in the first statement, which bore the subtitle ‘A generally understandable presentation of the problem’ (note by SMH)], the first edition of which was sold out in a few weeks, . . .’ [Valier, foreword]. Max Valier was a young man who had to interrupt his studies in astronomy, meteorology, physics and mathematics due to the First World War and never resumed them. He worked as a publicist and developed rocket propulsion systems, making him a border crosser between science and its popularisation: the book [i.e. the revised edition of ‘Vorstoß. . .’ (note by SMH)] could not be published in the whole of 1927, . . . because the technical developments to be incorporated were overflowing and the author himself was looking for a financier for practical experiments in order to ‘prove to the world that his ideas were correct and not the hare-brained utopias of a fantasist with no scientific knowledge.’ [Valier, Preface]. [Valier, foreword]

At the end of the 1920s, a rocket fever broke out in Germany: in 1927, the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR) was founded in Breslau by enthusiasts who worked privately and publicly on the practical realisation of these ideas. Hohmann was on the board right from the start, and in 1929 Oberth took over the chairmanship from Johannes Winkler (1897 – 1947), who launched the first European liquid-propellant rocket in 1931.

‘Raketenfritz’ von Opel (a grandson of the founder of the bicycle and car manufacturer, Adolph Opel, who was no longer involved in the company), Fr. W. Sander, Valier (Max Valier (1895 – 1930) died in the explosion of one of his engines. The publicist had spent the last two years before his death experimenting with rocket engines. In 1929, he set a speed record of 400 km/h on the icy Lake Starnberg) and others experimented with rocket engines for faster cars. Finally, in 1929, the Lang film Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon) was released, based on a novel by Thea von Harbou, which was shot with Oberth’s advice and as part of the merchandising of which Ufa financed the development of a functional liquid gas rocket.

2.1 The accessibility of celestial bodies

In 1925, the book by the Essen engineer Walter Hohmann (1880-1945) was published by Oldenburg-Verlag, which dealt with similar content to that of Oberth.

His most important insight is the mathematical proof [W. Hohmann, 1924, p. 84 – 88] that the most energetically favourable connection between two orbitals or between the earth’s surface and an orbit is an elliptical orbit tangent to it. Today it is called the Hohmann orbit. Even the table of contents reads like a utopia: detachment from Earth – return to Earth – free travel in space – bypassing other celestial bodies – landing on other celestial bodies.

However, the manuscript was initially rejected by the publisher with reference to the [rocket] – which is why Hohmann studied the contemporary papers all the better. When he first wrote his work, he was not familiar with Oberth’s works and contact with him and Valier was only established by the publisher when he asked for an expert opinion on the work. The resulting correspondence led to references to the papers by Goddard [2], Oberth and the book by Valier [Valier] on the very first page of the preface. However, as Oberth writes in his letter to Hohmann with the information about a very positive expert opinion for the publisher [1, p. XIII], the works complement each other very well: While Oberth himself works in detail on rocket construction plans, Hohmann focuses on celestial mechanical problems.

When considering the recoil impulse as a form of propulsion, he cites ‘more recent work by Goddard, Oberth and Valier’ as a reference, citing Hermann Ganswindt (the inventor of the freewheel for bicycles, a helicopter, explosion engine and steerable airship and a visionary rocket pioneer, 1856-1934) and Tsiolkovsky (Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), a Russian maths teacher, discovered the rocket equation while calculating rocket propulsion systems in his spare time before 1900) and ‘[s]uch as Newton, in a lecture on the principle of recoil, mentioned the possibility of flying in this way in a vacuum. ’ [W. Hohmann, 1924, p. 13] In a series with these representatives of physics and philosophy, Hohmann quotes the science fiction authors Verne and Lawitz in the previous section (‘It [the recoil] is already unconsciously hinted at in Jules Verne’s “Journey around the Moon” in the mention of rockets carried along for the purpose of reducing speed and is consciously used in Kurt Laßwitz’ ‘On Two Planets’, . . .’ [W. Hohmann, 1924, p. 13]). Here the boundaries between science and fiction seem to literally dissolve.

2.2 The rocket to the planetary spaces

Inspired in particular by Jules Verne [5], Oberth introduces chapter 13 (Physical effect of abnormal pressure on humans) of his book with the words: ‘Apparatuses can now be built so strong that they are capable of carrying a human being up into the air. Before that, however, it would be necessary to experimentally determine how much pressure a person can withstand without damage. In the appendix to the second edition, which appeared very quickly, he apologises for not having had time to revise it. There he refers to this point as outdated.

The fact that this topic made a big splash can be seen, for example, from the fact that as late as 1929 Walter Hohmann countered an article by a graduate engineer criticising space travel with sentences such as: ‘. . . the state of lacking gravity sensation occurs for the ski jumper, for example, with the moment of leaving the ski jump, without him having to be able to reach the ground through the alleged `. . . immediately sought spherical positioning of his soft parts. . . ‘ is damaged . . .’. [1, P. XIV]

Oberth’s intention, however, is solely to demonstrate that ‘with today’s technology it is possible to reach the speeds I have assumed. On the other hand, I by no means wanted to specify a particular design for a spaceship. The sketches I have included are more for explanatory purposes and to make the text easier to understand; they are merely intended to show what is generally important in such machines. In the case of a practical realisation, I would above all make things much simpler. (…)’, he writes in the preface to the [rocket]. In fact, chapter I on operation and performance reads like a textbook: he defines ‘[e]ach flying machine now, which is carried by the recoil of escaping gases, I want to call a rocket here.’ (p. 9). (p. 9) He then discusses Ziolkowski’s rocket equation in extenso (mass loss rates, outflow velocities, forces (thrust). . . ), efficiencies and flight behaviour taking into account the variable air pressure at altitude (He does discuss the barometric altitude formula of meteorology. However, as it leads to ‘unsolvable integrals’, he decides in favour of a good approximate calculation) and derives the cone as the optimum shape for the projectile.

He then considers the trajectory of such a missile, calculates climb heights and flight ranges and discusses launch sites at various geographical latitudes with a far-sighted view of realisations, taking into account the coreolis force. In this context, he presents several rockets of different sizes and states that smaller rockets should preferably be launched from high altitudes; the giant rocket, however, is ‘better launched from sea level’. Due to its high cross-sectional load, his equations lead to the recommendation of an underwater launch to compensate for the inland pressure by the buoyancy force.

The subsequent discussion of the details of his rocket design, which range from a section on the interior to the exterior colours, indicates his great conviction in the idea of travelling to the planets: ‘Leave one side bare and paint the other black. If I [the chamber] is cylindrical and I turn the black half towards the sun, the temperature rises to 25 °C.’ [Rocket, p. 83]

Always keeping the idea of human rocket occupants in mind, he describes other temperature stabilisation options for the flight into the outer solar system, as the colour alone could no longer achieve the desired effect at greater distances from the sun. He also differentiates between the possibilities for air exchange or air purification for short and long journeys.

3 ‘Woman in the Moon’ – a Fritz Lang film

The detailed descriptions of his construction plans in [Rocket] – bound in between pages 80 and 81, with the hydrogen rocket shown in red and the alcohol rocket in black – caught the attention of the muse: based on them, the writer Thea von Harbou wrote a novel entitled Frau im Mond (Woman on the Moon), which her husband, the director Fritz Lang, made into a film. ‘Oberth’s opportunity lay in turning his ideas and concepts, which were based on scientific research, into cinematic reality. This prospect was bound to have a euphoric effect on anyone interested in the conquest of space:

A space film in itself would have been very nice, but a space film by Fritz Lang based on a novel by Thea von Harbou with Prof. Oberth as a scientific advisor – that was almost unthinkable.’ [3, S. 186]. And further down it says: ‘As far as I know, FRAU IM MOND is the first German film in which there was such a direct transfer between science and fiction. FRAU IM MOND is the first veritable German science fiction film.’

With these pathetic words, the board member of the Friedrich Murnau Foundation for the Restoration of Old Films perfectly summarises the gigantic media-historical significance of this film from 1929. Be it the invention of the countdown by the film director, as one only thinks of such dramaturgical details when one plays through a rocket launch, or the mere (non-airworthy) construction of Oberth’s engineering concepts: this film really did write technical history. The historian Beyer quotes Fritz Lang: ‘When I count one, two, three, four, ten, fifty, a hundred, the audience doesn’t know when it’s going to go off. But if I count backwards, (. . . ) two, one ZERO! – then they understand.’ ([3], S. 191)

The film aroused great public interest even before its premiere in October 1929.

In the end, cinema audiences rewarded Ufa’s gigantic effort by making it ‘the biggest success of the 1929/30 German cinema season’ [3]. The New York Times acquired the rights to exclusive coverage of the premiere, for which a huge PR campaign was planned: Mr Oberth was commissioned at short notice to build a real launchable rocket! The contract was signed in the summer of 1929 after the end of filming, while the film premiere took place on 10 October 1929. – Unfortunately, the project failed at too short notice, which in retrospect is not surprising given the illusory development time of around two months: The first rocket to achieve the goal set here flew in Peenemünde in 1942 – after years of military-sponsored development work fuelled by the war.

3.1 The story

The main plot is a flight to the moon, which is played out from the first visionary ideas through to realisation. It is based on the work and visions of a German (impoverished) Professor Manfeldt, which are to be realised by his young friend, the wealthy engineer ‘Helius’ (whether this naming is derived from the Greek ‘sun’ because he brings light into the professor’s life is not explained anywhere). The subplot is of course a love story that develops between his friend’s attractive fiancée, Friede. After successfully landing on the moon, a dispute arises over the gold deposits there, the professor dies with his theories confirmed and Helius sacrifices himself so that his homesick friend can return to Earth. The happy ending is that Friede (who had secretly snuck out of the return capsule) embraces him in his lunar solitude [see YouTube, approx. 5th min].

It was not enough that the author had taken all the technical data from Oberth’s bestseller. The professor’s constant presence on set has an impact on countless details that might otherwise have gone unnoticed in the film.

At the same time, however, there are also many details that were only noticed a few decades later when the film was actually tested in space. Some of these details are intended to demonstrate the great care and attention to detail that can be seen in the rocket in the film and reveal the presence of a consultant with a high level of expertise. – On the other hand, it should perhaps also be shown that imagination triumphed over physics in quite a few places.

3.2 Fiction and truth in the film Woman in the Moon

The effect of microgravity in the spaceship. The effects of microgravity on liquids, for example, testify to great foresight: The schnapps that Friede wants to pour does not leave the bottle. Elsewhere, however, no thought was given to the fact that the ink in ballpoint pens also only flows downwards with the help of gravity: Helius, and later the boy who helps him, continue not to write diaries in pencil.

From where to where can microgravity be felt? The effect of 0 g naturally only occurs at exactly one point between the Earth and the Moon (the so-called Lagrange point). Looking at the orbit curve, the film logically simulates this effect only in this tiny section between the Moon and the Earth.

However, no attention is paid to the fact that long before this ‘zero point’, even close to the Earth, such a small force of attraction is felt, which we call microgravity. This effect had actually already been discussed, in particular by Valier in [Valier, p. 13]: ‘The occupants of a spaceship therefore do not only gradually become weightless as they approach the weightless point, . . .’ but in his opinion in every phase of flight without acceleration: from switching off the drive to firing the brakes. During the first part of the journey, the protagonists still walk normally through the capsule and drink from glasses; only when they are further away from Earth do they hang from handles or ‘fly’ through the spaceship.

The rocket launch.

The rocket is ceremoniously driven out of the hangar in an upright position (a magnificent spectacle with two spotlights illuminating it in such a way that it casts two shadows on the hangar doors, reminiscent of images of NASA space shuttles being transported to the launch pad) and then launched in this position (in a water basin). Looking back, it is clear that Oberth’s idea of a vertical launch was later realised exclusively: Since Peenemünde, all space rockets based on the A4 have been launched vertically with their own propulsion systems in the Soviet Union, the United States and later also in Europe and China – and not, as in earlier utopias, e.g. by Jules Verne, fired at an angle from an external cannon.
Water launch. This was the first depiction of a launch from a water basin. However, the idea of a water launch (see section 2.2, p. 4) for manned rockets was deemed unnecessary. It was later taken up in the German-French science fiction series ‘Raumpatrouille – Die fantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion’ (Space Patrol – The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion), broadcast from September to December 1966. In Chapter II of his [rocket], Oberth describes that this would make sense for a giant rocket and that the empty rocket would also be easier to transport if it could float.

The representation of the speed curve: The curve starts slowly during the rocket launch and then becomes asymptotically steeper. In my opinion, this is only half plausible: it is clear that the speed increases slowly at first and only reaches its maximum later on; however, I think that many viewers initially think of thrust when they see this display, i.e. the force that accelerates the rocket to escape velocity, which could lead to confusion. However, this is needed on the ground in particular to overcome g. The force is proportional to the time derivative of the speed and should decrease quadratically with increasing distance. This makes the representation in the film understandable. It remains unclear how much influence Oberth’s consideration that air resistance slows down the rocket has here. In any case, it was clear (at least to him) that the rocket continues to fly on its own in ‘ether space’ (see his chapter III, x 17; prospects).

Note: Oberth likes to use the term ‘ether space’ (see [rocket]), even though the ether had already been disproved by Michelson and Morley in 1881 (Potsdam) and 1887 (Cleveland).

The far side of the moon. The scenes after the landing seem bizarre (here one is inclined to doubt that any expert was consulted): Like other science fiction authors, von Harbou assumes that there is an atmosphere on the far side of the moon, which is a priori incomprehensible: Why should only half of the moon have a gas envelope? Gravity acts radially (i.e. equally in all directions), so that it can hold an atmosphere in every direction or not in every direction. There is also no apparent reason why the side facing Earth should be blown free of atmosphere. On the other hand, the Sun does emit solar wind, which shapes the Earth’s magnetic field (Van Allen belt) and possibly also the atmosphere, compressing it on the side facing the Sun. However, there is no known analogue for this on Earth, nor is it scientifically conceivable.

Due to thermal motion, diffusion would immediately drive gas molecules on one side of the celestial body to the other. So if we do not see an atmosphere on the moon, we can assume that it does not have one in toto. Oberth writes in [Rakete] about working in a vacuum that ‘people in diving suits’ [Rakete, § 17, Ausblicke, 2: (about the installation of the mirror)] could do this. The professor wears one when he exits the spacecraft – however, this description of a suit with a powerful helmet for breathing (which makes sense!) unfortunately falls short when it comes to the rest of the body, as the suit almost collapses. An illustration of a suit ‘designed for internal overpressure’ in [Valier, p. 69] shows how it should look better. Two pages earlier, the same source states that ‘it is not enough for the lungs to be supplied with the amount of oxygen needed for breathing; the body must also be under sufficient gas pressure.’ Did Oberth, who was otherwise very cautious in all areas, overlook the respiration of the skin and the pressure gradient of the human body relative to the surrounding vacuum? Or is the filmic representation of the suit merely an overlooked detail, because the generally educated engineer was more concerned with the correct representation of rocket technology than with human needs? In [Rakete], he devotes an entire subchapter to Chapter II, § 13, ‘Physical effects of abnormal pressure on humans,’ analysing the compatibility of space travel. Even an oxygen tank, which divers have been carrying with them for centuries, is not visible in the cosmonaut suit; cf. e.g. the exhibition of the equipment of the Swedish warship Vasa in Stockholm, which sank in 1628.

3.3 Summary of Woman in the Moon

It is not without reason that Beyer [3] praises ‘the successful integration of a scientific concept (. . . ) into a play plot. [3] as a technical ‘demonstration film’ – at least if one limits oneself to the visualisation of the rocket from the inside and outside. Here, the film pedantically follows the descriptions of precision instruments, handholds, hammocks and other design ideas from the [rocket]. From a physics point of view, however, there are a few bugs that probably have to be attributed to artistic licence.

Looking at the biographies of Oberth and Lang, the film plays only a relatively minor role in the director’s oeuvre, while it helped the engineer’s visions to ‘break through from theory to practice’ [edb].

Oberth himself writes in the appendix to his [Rakete] that Goddard was already experimenting with rocket engines. As a declaration of independence, he adds that he only learned of Goddard’s work A method of Reaching extreme altitudes, Smithonian Institute Massachusetts, 1919, when it went to press. Goddard also experimented with 8° cones as nozzle shapes, with which he achieved enviable efficiencies of 64.5% (Exp. 51). Oberth compares this with the efficiency currently in use, which is eta <2%, but describes Goddard’s work as experimental confirmation of his theoretical considerations and therefore does not see the two works as competing, but rather as complementary.

In Germany, on the other hand, it was primarily the work on the flyable, 2-metre-long experimental rocket for the accompanying show at the premiere that led to success, as it was to be ‘if possible, on the day of the premiere of FRAU IM MOND –, which was to rise 40 km high with liquid fuel.’ It was to be financed with funds from Ufa’s advertising budget [3]: The cone nozzle was later purchased by Ufa from the Association for Space Travel, so that further experiments could be carried out. The youngest member of this association, Wernher von Braun, would later actually put two people on the moon as technical programme director at NASA – although in 1969 it was two men who flew to Earth’s satellite, not a man and a woman. Despite all the successes in space travel, in reality, not a single woman has been to the moon to date [and my efforts to get there have unfortunately not been successful so far 🙁 ].

In his lecture, Beyer once again sums up the significance of the film in a very dramatic way as ‘the decisive boost for rocket technology – made possible by Fritz Lang and Ufa (. . . ). An event that is unprecedented in the history of film.’

4 A look back at the future

4.1 Visionaries in science and fiction

The close relationship between science and fiction since the 1920s has had a constructive impact on both fields: Following the success of Oberth and Hohmann on the book market, science fiction writers had their works reviewed by engineers, while physicists and engineers sought visualisations and means of expression for their ideas in the popular media. For example, [1, p. XIV] states that the writer ‘Otto W. Gail regretted ’. . . not to have known the work earlier . . . ‘ and that Hohmann sent his novel to them for comment. Similarly, the US series Star Trek, which has been building up a huge fan base for four decades now, was not only advised by scientists to ensure that the technical and astrophysical aspects were portrayed correctly. In addition, the most famous living astrophysicist, Steven Hawking, did not miss the opportunity to appear on camera, which, from the perspective of the series’ audience, lends it greater credibility. For Star Trek fans, a book entitled The Technology of the Enterprise was published after decades of success, showing that here, too, every detail has been carefully thought out. [See: Rick Sternbach, Michael Okuda: Star Trek. The Technology of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The Official Handbook, Heel; reprinted in 2005] Conversely, various physicists (e.g. Metin Tolan, Hanns Ruder) use sequences from the television Star Trek universe for visualisation in popular science lectures and discuss them together with their own visualisations. [9

The prelude to this ‘tango’ was Oberth’s [rocket] from 1923. The modest introduction and the subsequent approximately eighty-page detailed mathematical discussion of the rocket nozzle in Chapter I cannot have been what seemed utopian to scholars at the time. However, the author devotes the entire Chapter II to discussing a rocket that carries a human being into space and the human compatibility of this undertaking. The (logical) views on ‘purpose and prospects’ in Part III of the booklet must have sounded like science fiction at the time, even though they may seem almost banal to us today.

4.2 Oberth’s outlook

This was what initially angered his reviewers so much that they dismissed his work as ‘not scientific enough’ [btw: didn’t we just discuss this recently?]. To us today, this sounds absurd, because most of his visions have since been realised. In (§ 17) on the possible applications of his ideas, Oberth lists the following ideas:

Experiments in a vacuum and in weightlessness This is precisely the focus of space travel today: astronauts and cosmonauts are working on long-term experiments with weightlessness in the ISS and the Space Shuttle. On Earth, similar conditions are achieved for a few seconds at a time in parabolic flights and drop towers.

Experiments with condensed matter near absolute zero, below the freezing point of helium, the coldest coolant on Earth, in order to observe the behaviour of electrons. Here, Oberth touches on a research topic that was highly controversial at the time, in the early days of quantum mechanics. Such experiments are indeed of great interest, but are rarely carried out in space, but rather in terrestrial laboratories.

Astronomical observations

1. with telescopes of all sizes, ‘since the stars do not twinkle’: The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), launched in 1990, has indeed brought enormous advances in many areas of astrophysics.

2. in all areas of the electromagnetic spectrum: satellite telescopes in the UV and X-ray ranges, which were launched as early as the 1960s, enabled real breakthroughs in stellar physics.

3. Near the Sun, because the sky is black and you only have to cover its disc: He wrote this a few years after the first successful measurement of light deflection at the edge of the Sun by Sir Arthur Eddington’s solar eclipse expedition in 1919, which provided proof for the new non-Newtonian theory of gravity in the general theory of relativity.

Moon flight: ‘Finally, a rocket could travel around the moon at an initial speed of v1 = 11 km/sec and explore the unknown hemisphere.’

Oberth and the moon. As our closest celestial body, the Earth’s satellite is naturally the first target of space travel. When Hermann Oberth declared the independence of his ideas from Goddard’s experiments in the appendix to his [Rakete], he could not resist mentioning ‘that Goddard had thought of sending a (. . . ) rocket to the moon.’ However, public interest was muted. As late as 1927, scientific lectures by the writer Otto W. Gail on his novel Der Stein vom Mond (The Stone from the Moon) had to be cancelled in Cologne and Essen because the Cologne city administration took the view that ‘it could only be a humorous evening . . .’ ([1], p. XIV) and demanded full entertainment tax, which could not be recouped by the small audience expected.

It was only Fritz Lang’s film that helped the journey to the moon based on the engineer’s plans to break through to the public. The ‘Woman in the Moon’ was for a long time an important leitmotif of peaceful space travel, as Oberth intended: ‘Since such a . . . could also have high strategic value (it could be used to cause . . . the greatest damage), it would not even be out of the question that one of the cultural states would already start implementing this invention in the foreseeable future, especially since a large part of the capital invested would also yield interest in peacetime.’ [Rakete, § 17] – it also appears, for example, as the logo on the rockets from Peenemünde, which Wernher von Braun’s team ultimately developed as weapons on behalf of the military: The Aggregat 4 (A4) was the first to fly to the edge of space on 3 October 1942: launch clearance 15:50 – flight altitude 84.5 km – flight distance 296 m. Goebbels later promoted it as a V2 retaliation weapon. For the engineers, however, it symbolised the original vision of the peaceful application of this technology. [5]

4.3 Space travel for Earth!

Oberth also describes his vision of flying objects orbiting the Earth (‘we prefer to call them observation stations,’ [Rakete, p. 86]) and being supplied by smaller rockets. Here, too, he does not hide his intention of sending humans into space, as he suggests that two such flying machines could be connected by a wire rope and rotated around each other in case weightlessness should unexpectedly prove harmful in the long term. This idea has not been realised to date, but has been taken up by numerous science fiction creators. One example is the (Cardassian) space station Deep Space 9 in Roddenberry’s Star Trek (1993), which visualises early station plans by NASA. The rotation is intended to create the impression of gravity in the station by means of centrifugal force.

According to Oberth, the purpose of a space station essentially consists of three points:

1. Earth observation for research purposes, e.g. in geography and ethnology, for radio communication with remote and isolated locations. This idea is further elaborated in [6]. Clarke, the science fiction author famous for ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, predicts comprehensive radio, telephone and TV coverage via geostationary satellites. This orbit is therefore affectionately named the Clarke orbit after him, although his estimate based on Kepler’s law calculated it to be 16% higher than the orbit actually used today. Oberth goes on to discuss the observation of war zones and navigation in shipping, iceberg warning (he refers to the sinking of the Titanic in 1912) and the rescue of shipwrecked persons. However, the American’s idea was for an unmanned experimental rocket that would announce its arrival with fireworks: Calculation of minimum mass required to raise one pound to an infinite altitude: The only reliable procedure would be to send the smallest possible mass of ash powder to the dark surface of the moon when in conjunction (…), in such a way that it would be ignited on impact. The light would then be visible in a powerful telescope. [2, p. 55]

2. to construct a mirror in orbit to supply high polar latitudes with light, to ‘burn’ the Siberian ports free of ice and to save crops in our latitudes from sudden weather changes (this idea will probably (hopefully!) not be realised so quickly, because the consequences of such (locally well-intentioned) climate intervention would be incalculable, but in any case globally serious!). To assemble the gigantic mirror, he suggests bringing it up in individual parts – exactly as is currently being done with the ISS.

3. A kind of cosmic filling station for preparing flights to distant planets: Like in a space dock, vehicles to other planets would be constructed here, because ‘if the rocket never has to penetrate an atmosphere or be exposed to pressure, its shape and strength are entirely up to us. (. . . )’ Valier paints a slightly less dry picture of this future: ’Even more favourable than our moon as a transfer and refuelling station would theoretically be a tiny moon whose own gravitational pull is practically negligible. Such a moon would also be more advantageous if it orbited a little closer to Earth. If it orbited at 7.04 Earth radii or 44,000 km, for example, it would circle the Earth and remain at its apogee above a specific city (here, Valier, in 1928 (if not in earlier editions) – at least 17 years before Clarke! – was already proposing the idea of geostationary satellites. While Clarke’s orbital radius is 16% above today’s value, Valier’s is 22% different from the value used. [6], [Valier]) constantly at the apex. (. . . ) However, we do not have such a small moon, while the planet Mars is brilliantly illuminated by Phobos and Deimos. But one could think of creating one artificially, . . .’ [Valier, p. 27 f.]

This point has not yet been realised in reality, although science fiction has of course been making use of it for a long time: the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek would neither be stable under gravity nor capable of launching from Earth. As it is conceived – constructed in space – it can be seen, for example, in the film Star Trek 1, when the new Enterprise sets off on its maiden voyage; a few more beautiful shots can be found at the beginning of Star Trek 3, after the old crew ‘steals’ their ship and sets off in search of Mr. Spock.

It is not unrealistic that the diligence of modern engineers will also help Oberth’s latter vision become a reality. Science fiction has already shown this, and according to Hasso Plattner’s development model of design thinking, the filmed utopia is likely to be a successful form of prototyping. After the success of the moon landing – from Kepler’s dream and Oberth’s vision to the cinema film and the reality of the years 1969 to 1972 – it would not be the first time that television has shaped the future!

Literature

[Rocket] Hermann Oberth: Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket to the Planetary Spaces), 2nd edition, Verlag Oldenburg, Munich and Berlin, 1925

[Woman in the Moon] Woman in the Moon, directed by Fritz Lang, screenplay by Thea von Harbou, Ufa production, 1929

[W. Hohmann, 1924] Walter Hohmann: Die Erreichbarkeit der Himmelskörper (The Accessibility of Celestial Bodies): Investigations into the Problem of Space Travel, 1st edition, Verlag R. Oldenburg, Munich Vienna, 1925; in: supplemented reprint; published by the Konservatorium Der Mensch und der Weltraum e. V., 3rd edition, R.Oldenburg Graphische Betriebe GmbH, Munich 1994

[Valier] Max Valier: Rocket Flight, 5th edition of ‘The Advance into Space’ – A Technical Possibility, Oldenburg Publishing House, 1928

[1] Marga Hohmann: Biographical data on the life and work of Walter Hohmann; in: supplemented reprint; published by the Conservatory Der Mensch und der Weltraum e. V., 3rd edition, R. Oldenburg Graphische Betriebe GmbH, Munich 1994

[2] Goddard: A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, Smithsonian Institution, Massachusetts, City of Washington 1919 in: Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection, Vol. 71, Number 2

[3] Beyer, Friedemann: A film makes technological history: Fritz Lang’s Woman in the Moon (1929), in: 8th Space History Day (26 June 2004): Conference proceedings. Feucht near Nuremberg 2004, 178-96.

[4] Friedemann Beyer: The invention of the countdown, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 October 2004, No. 240, p. 37

[5] Es begann in Peenemünde (It Began in Peenemünde), documentary film for the Peenemünde Historical-Technical Information Centre, Studio Pierer, Hamburg

[6] Arthur C. Clarke: Extra-terrestrial Relays – Can Rocket Stations Give World-Wide Radio Coverage?, in: Wireless World, October 1945

[7] Peterchen’s Moon Ride, based on the book by Gerdt von Bassewitz (1915), produced by the Planetarium am Insulaner, Berlin

[8] Johannes Kepler: Kepler’s Somnium: The Dream, or Posthumous Work on Lunar Astronomy, Dover, 2003

[9] Hanns Ruder: Was Einstein noch nicht sehen konnte (What Einstein could not yet see), lecture given frequently at various locations during the Einstein Year, 2005 (PDF), various visualisations on the website of Prof. Dr. Ute Kraus: tempolimit-lichtgeschwindigkeit.de

Gimmick:

This article also appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft magazine in 2013 in my kosmologs blog ‘UraniaUhurae’.

So if you’ve been working hard and studying, why not treat yourself to a break with ‘Raumpatrouille Orion – Rücksturz in Kino’ (Space Patrol Orion – Back to the Cinema), a new compilation (2003).

And don’t forget: ‘Everything will be galactically fine’ 🙂

Calculating the Lagrange point using school physics

The point of force equilibrium between the Earth and the Moon is obtained by equating Newton’s gravitational force: Where the gravitational force of the Earth F_grav,earth balances the gravitational force of the Moon (in the opposite direction) -F_grav,moon, i.e. where the two forces cancel each other out, there is force equilibrium.