Size: 10 x 15 cm.
Description: this image was printed from a photo negative for collectors. It has the following annotations on the back written in German: "Father of spaceflight", and the dates of birth and death.
Oberth became a member of the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR), the "Society for Space Travel", an amateur rocketry group that had been greatly inspired by his book, and Oberth acted as a mentor to enthusiasts who joined the Society, which included people like Wernher von Braun, Rolf Engel, Rudolf Nebel or Paul Ehmayr.
Oberth's student Max Valier joined forces with Fritz von Opel to create the world's first large-scale experimental rocket program, Opel-RAK, which led to speed records for land and rail vehicles and the world's first rocket plane. The Opel RAK.1, a purpose-built design by Julius Hatry, was shown to the public and world media on September 30, 1929, piloted by von Opel. Valier's and von Opel's demonstrations had a strong and lasting impact on later pioneers of space flight, in particular another of Oberth's students, Wernher von Braun.
In 1929, Oberth conducted a static firing of his first liquid-fueled rocket engine, which he named Kegeldüse. He was aided in this experiment by 18-year-old student Wernher von Braun, who would later become a giant of German and American rocket engineering from the 1940s onward, culminating in the gigantic Saturn V rockets that made it possible for man to land on the Moon in 1969 and several years later. In fact, Von Braun said of him:
"Hermann Oberth was the first who, when thinking about the possibility of spaceships, took a slide rule and presented mathematically analyzed concepts and designs... I myself owe him not only the guiding star of my life, but also my first contact with the theoretical and practical aspects of rocketry and space travel. A place of honor in the history of science and technology must be reserved for his pioneering contributions to the field of astronautics."
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