Wernher von Braun material up for auction
Original material by Wernher von Braun that formed the basis for three classic 1950s coffee table books about the future of space is up for auction.
A collection of some of the most important seminal documents of the Space Age are open for bids as rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun’s “Man Will Conquer Space Soon” archive goes on the block. A collection of signed technical drawings, schematics, memos, orbital diagrams, and mathematical calculations related to von Braun’s efforts to sell an ambitious space program to both the American public and the US government, it’s the centerpiece of the Space and Aviation Auction at Boston-based RR Auction through April 19.
On March 22, 1952, the American weekly feature magazine Collier’s hit the newsstands. Among its usual mixture of advertisements and articles was the first of a series of features that would run for the next two years. These seemed like the wildest science fiction at the time, but would become established fact within a surprisingly few years. The series was called “Man Will Conquer Space Soon” and included painstakingly detailed color illustrations by magazine artists Chesley Bonestell, Fred Freeman, and Rolf Klep. It outlined a complete program for building an unmanned satellite, a manned space shuttle, a space station, an expedition to set up an outpost on the Moon, and topped it off with the conquest of Mars.
Later compiled into and expanded by three coffee table books – Across the Space Frontier (1952), Conquest of the Moon (1953), and The Exploration of Mars (1956) – the series was the brainchild of Wernher von Braun, one of the great rocket pioneers of the 20th century. He was the man behind Germany’s V2 rocket, and architect of the Saturn V booster that would send the first men to the Moon on the Apollo missions.
Those coffee table books are three of my most prized books in my somewhat large library. Anyone who was involved in the 1960s space race read them. When I was old enough to read I found them in my local library. They formed the basis of Disney movies, television shows, and rides at Disneyland. Other Hollywood productions were influenced by them. And most important of all, young men like Jim Lovell were influenced by them, making them want to be astronauts.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Original material by Wernher von Braun that formed the basis for three classic 1950s coffee table books about the future of space is up for auction.
A collection of some of the most important seminal documents of the Space Age are open for bids as rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun’s “Man Will Conquer Space Soon” archive goes on the block. A collection of signed technical drawings, schematics, memos, orbital diagrams, and mathematical calculations related to von Braun’s efforts to sell an ambitious space program to both the American public and the US government, it’s the centerpiece of the Space and Aviation Auction at Boston-based RR Auction through April 19.
On March 22, 1952, the American weekly feature magazine Collier’s hit the newsstands. Among its usual mixture of advertisements and articles was the first of a series of features that would run for the next two years. These seemed like the wildest science fiction at the time, but would become established fact within a surprisingly few years. The series was called “Man Will Conquer Space Soon” and included painstakingly detailed color illustrations by magazine artists Chesley Bonestell, Fred Freeman, and Rolf Klep. It outlined a complete program for building an unmanned satellite, a manned space shuttle, a space station, an expedition to set up an outpost on the Moon, and topped it off with the conquest of Mars.
Later compiled into and expanded by three coffee table books – Across the Space Frontier (1952), Conquest of the Moon (1953), and The Exploration of Mars (1956) – the series was the brainchild of Wernher von Braun, one of the great rocket pioneers of the 20th century. He was the man behind Germany’s V2 rocket, and architect of the Saturn V booster that would send the first men to the Moon on the Apollo missions.
Those coffee table books are three of my most prized books in my somewhat large library. Anyone who was involved in the 1960s space race read them. When I was old enough to read I found them in my local library. They formed the basis of Disney movies, television shows, and rides at Disneyland. Other Hollywood productions were influenced by them. And most important of all, young men like Jim Lovell were influenced by them, making them want to be astronauts.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Those coffee table books are three of my most prized books in my somewhat large library.
Although they aren’t properly from Collier’s, I tend to include the earlier The Conquest of Space and the later Beyond the Solar System by Ley and Bonestell with these three books because they were also published by Viking Press.
Jim Davis: I’ve got those too.
Remembering this two men who first proposed the use of rockets (or thrusters) for spaceflight (taken from https://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/R/rocket_engineers.html):
Ganswindt, Hermann (1856–1934)
“Hermann Ganswindt was a German law student and amateur inventor, born in Voigtshof, East Prussia, who, along with Nikolai Kibalchich and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, was one of the first to realize the potential of the rocket for space travel. He came up with a design for an interplanetary spacecraft as early as 1881 that used the reaction principle. In his scheme, steel cartridges charged with dynamite would be placed in a reaction chamber. As a cartridge exploded, half of it would be ejected while the other half struck the top of the chamber to provide the reaction force. Suspended below the chamber on springs was the inhabited part of the ship. Ganswindt even provided his crew with artificial gravity by allowing the spaceship to spin.”
Kibalchich, Nikolai Ivanovitch (1854–1881)
Nikolai Kibalchich was a Russian medical student, journalist, and revolutionary who may have been the first person in history to propose using rocket power as a means of transport in space. Kibalchich had attempted several times to kill Czar Alexander II who, ironically, had tried to introduce reforms in Russia during his reign. Along with his accomplices, Kibalchich finally succeeded in assassinating the Czar on Mar 13, 1881, and was himself put to death on April 3, at the age of 27. While in prison, awaiting execution, Kibalchich wrote a remarkable paper illustrating the principle of space propulsion. In it, he describes a means of propelling a platform by igniting gunpowder cartridges in a rocket chamber. Changing the direction of the rocket’s axis, he realized, would alter the vehicle’s flight path. In his notes, he explains: I am writing this project in prison, a few days before my death. I believe in the practicability of my idea and this faith supports me in my desperate plight.