Born in Pula to Slovene parents. When his father who was stationed in Pula as
a naval officer of the Austro-Hungarian empire died, Herman was only two
years old and his widowed mother moved back to home town of Maribor. He was
characterized as both strong-willed and confident, serious and ambitious.
Builder of bridges and railray lines.
World War I. A first lieutenant, Herman lives in Soca and Piavo.
He builds bridges and railway lines which are later destroyed
with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Specialist in rocket technology.
This was Herman's title after his completion in 1925 of engineering
and electro-technical studies in Vienna. The title was largely
the result of his co-operation with the university association
for aeronautic technique which included a rocket science
department.
Space visionaries.
Years of dire economic hardship coincide with Herman's design
of a futuristic rocket and exploration of space-travel technology.
Loneliness, deprivation and tuberculosis. The other pioneers
of rocket and space travel see Potocnik as a dreamer.
Rockets in planetary space.
Oberth's book inspires Herman in a creative dialog. The emergence
of first notes and the gradual shaping of his own book. Potocnik's
methodic throroughness is losing a race against his illness.
Feverish visions,
that nevertheless remain subordinate to Herman's keen engineering
knowledge and the parameters of technical feasibility, replace
the excessive focus on minute details of the opening pages
of the book. The completion of a rough draft of all the chapters
in 1928.
Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums.
The book with the above title was published in 1929, shortly
before Potocnik's death. It runs to 188 pages and includes
100 drawings from Herman Noordung's pen. Its contents are
divided into 62 chapters with an introduction and a conclusion,
making up four distinct segments of the book.
Reaction as a principle of space travel
With this conclusion, the author brings the first part of his
book to a close. Herman discusses gravity and ways of overcoming
it. He rules out the launching out of a gun, as suggested
by Jules Verne. The rocket-driven space vehicle is the only
option.
Space technology will be used in everyday life.
With this claim, Herman Potocnik concludes the second part
of his book wherein. The goes on to deal with the functioning
of the rocket during different stages of the flight. He contemplates
the rocket's efficiency while warning agaist its possible
misuse for military purposes.
The vision of a geo-stationary satellite.
The contents of the third chapter. A satellite with an angle
speed equal to that of the point on Equator underneath it
will circle around the globe indefinitely. The satellite
will circle 35,900 km above the earth's surface and will
be 42,300 km from the center of the earth. The speed of the
satellite circling the globe: 3,080 km per second. It will
be used for research and communication purposes.
Nuclear and photonic drive.
This is the technology that will make it possible to travel
to nearby planets in our universe. Space travel is not mere
day-dreaming. Instead, it is our technological future. This
is the concluding thought of the fourth and last segment
of Herman's book.
Syncom 1, 1963
Moments before the launching of the first telecommunications
satellite, Wernher von Braun said: American telecommunications
satellite Syncom will be positioned exactly 35.7 thousand
km above the face of the earth and its speed will be equal
to the rotating speed of the planet. These distances and
even the approximate point in the space was, with an enviable
precision, determined by a captain of the Austrian army,
Herman Potocnik a half-century ago. His book was a historical
breakthrough in international space and rocket science."
Herman Potocnik
visionary, the author of the first strategic plan for the human
exploration of space. His positions and predictions enjoy
a new confirmation with each accomplishment of man in the
space seventy years after they were written. Potocnik was
a man with an extraordinary technological imagination and
an astounding philosophy of existence.
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