A Manifesto For Expansion

M. A. G. Michaud. (1990), JBIS, 43, pp.559-560

Refcode: 1990.43.559

Abstract:

Spaceflight advocacy began with visions and ideas, often in the guise of science fiction. Serious theoretical work began with Konstantin Tsiolkovski in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Hermann Oberth and Robert Gobbard developed further the theoretical structure necessary for spaceflight. Initial rocket experiments were conducted by Gobbard and others in the United States, the Verein Fur Raumschiffahrt (VfR) in Germany, and rocket societies in the Soviet Union. The VfR, the American Interplanetary Society and the British Interplanetary Society were all advocating interplanetary travel in the early 1930’s, yet rockets of significant scale were not launched until World War II. Despite far-seeing work such as the 1946 RAND study, the use of the rocket to enter space had little political support in the 1940s. Only a decade later machines had entered space to stay; and two decades later men landed on the Moon.