264 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
contiguous and interplanetary space travel. The book brought ad- 
verse comments from the uninformed and praise from the disciples. 
Subsequent publication supporting Oberth’s thesis was Dr. Walter 
Hohmann’s book, “Die Erreichbarkeit der Himmelskérper” (The 
Attainability of the Celestial Bodies). This book was a highly theo- 
retical treatment of minimum energy departure trajectories from the 
earth and return to the earth from the other planets. This was fol- 
lowed by Max Valier’s “Der Vorstoss in den Weltraum” (A Dash into 
Space). These classics were the forerunners of the many publications 
which followed on the feasibility of space flight. 
In 1929 Hermann Oberth published his most important work, “Die 
Wege zur Raumschiffahrt” (The Roads to Space Travel). In this 
book Oberth presented a most complete analysis of contiguous and 
interplanetary space flight. He discussed in great detail the prob- 
lems associated with the design of manned space vehicles and flights 
in these zones. He also covered the possibility of artificial satellites. 
As a direct result of Oberth’s publications, the German Society for 
Space Travel (Verein fiir Raumschiffahrt) was formed. 
The German Rocket Society for the advancement of space travel 
was organized in 1929. After going through a period of natural 
growth, Le., developing a unity of purpose and procuring test facil- 
ities, the group was successful in developing a number of liquid rockets. 
In 1933 the military, after witnessing a formal rocket demonstration 
by the society, commissioned one of the society members, Wernher 
von Braun, then aged 24, to develop an experimental military rocket. 
In 12 short years (1933-45), the German military rocket research 
program had gone through an amazing period of development. 
Rocket research had progressed from the A-1 in 1933, weighing 330 
pounds, which was never fired, to the famous A-4, commonly known 
as the V-2, weighing 24,000 pounds. Approximately 1,120 V—2’s were 
fired on England, with 1,050 actually falling on London, and 2,500 
were fired against other targets in Europe. To make the total com- 
plete, it should be mentioned that probably another thousand V—2’s 
were fired for training purposes, and still hundreds more were brought 
to the United States for research. 
Advanced thinking and planning had also gone into the A-10, a 
two-stage missile which would extend the range of the A-4 across the 
Atlantic. 
To carry out this accelerated military rocket program, the 
Peenemiinde Research Institute had been established in 1937 on the 
Baltic seacoast by the German Army. These facilities, which have 
long since become as famous as the rocket produced there, were very 
short lived. In the early months of 1945, the Peenemiinde facilities 
were captured by Russian armies. 
