OBERTH, HERMANN. (1894 1989). Romanian born, German scientist; one of the founders of modern astronautics. Collection. 8pp. Misc. formats. Feucht, February 24, 1971 and March 16, 1971. To Joachim Ruf. In German with translation. TLS. (“H. Oberth”). 1p. 4to., TPCS. (“H. Oberth”). 1p. 12mo., and six large 4to. pages of autograph mathematical equations and notes in shorthand written in pencil on the rectos and versos of large envelopes that Oberth saved for such purposes.

The TLS from March 16, 1971 has a brief equation in Oberth’s hand and is written on his personal stationery.

“I am enclosing three calculations I handwrote over the past few weeks. The first concerns a function that arises with the question how often a multi-stage rocket is to be separated when final load and velocity are given. I think I calculated those curves for the first time in 1941 in a ‘GKdos’ [possibly Geheime Kommandosache or secret command document] report where I analyzed their course. I plan to exhibit that report in the new yet-to-be-founded Hermann-Oberth Museum.

The second piece of paper concerns a process by which to transcribe a differential equation of the second degree into the inverse form. I examined the process and found it to be useful to integrate several differential equations, for which this used to be deemed impossible, into one closed expression. Some of these I have published. I wrote the process down again, mainly so I would not get out of practice. On the back of that piece of paper you will find this letter in shorthand.

The third paper addresses the following question: You have a curving road that you must cross at right angles only. Your destination is on the same side. What must the curve be to make it worth crossing twice? If you do not mind my messy notes, you may keep them. What is interesting about the third paper is that the result is independent of the width of the road and that the road has to be curved by more than 104º to make it worth your while to cross over.

What is especially interesting about the first problem is when a +1. In that case you get a curve xy=yx...”

TPCS. Feb. 24, 1971. With a holograph postscript. On Oberth’s personal correspondence card.

“I am sorry, but for the past 50 years I have been using only the typewriter, and what I need for myself I take down in shorthand. That is why I will not be able to grant your wish.

Respectfully,
H. Oberth

[In holograph] The most I could send you are cut-up envelopes and similar bits of paper on which I took down calculations.”

Oberth became famous in the early 1920s with the publication of his groundbreaking Die Rakete zu den Planetenraeumen (The Rocket into Planetary Space), a small book which demonstrated many truths about rocket travel now taken for granted: for example, that a rocket can operate in a void and accelerate faster than the velocity of its own exhaust gases. Like the American and Russian rocket pioneers, Robert H. Goddard and Constantin Tsiolkovsky, with whose work he was not familiar, Oberth concluded that a rocket orbiting the earth would be possible if the required velocity through a propellant could be generated. Oberth followed this work with an expanded version, Wege zur Raumschiffahrt (Ways of Space Travel), published in 1929. This work earned him the acclaimed Robert Esnault-Pelterie-Hirsch Prize of 10,000 francs, enabling him to finance his research on liquid propellant rocket engines. Oberth’s main achievement in this work, which “lay on everyone's work table” was his development of the rocket’s synergetic ascent path and acceleration once in space, (Hermann Oberth, Rauschenbach).

Concurrent to his writings, Oberth worked as a high school mathematics and physics teacher in Romania and as an advisor on the Fritz Lang film Frau im Mond (The Woman in the Moon). During the late 1930s, he was peripherally attached to the German’s V2 rocket research, headed by his student Wernher von Braun and, in 1941, Oberth began work at Peenemunde on the German rocket program. In our correspondence Oberth mentions the Hermann Oberth Space Travel Museum, located in the Bavarian city of Feucht, where he settled after the war, publishing his Man into Space in 1953 and eventually working for von Braun and NASA, as well as American airline companies and assisting with the Atlas ICBM program; he retired in 1962 but continued his research and regularly traveled to the U.S. to attend Apollo and Space Shuttle launches.

This is the only manuscript material of Oberth we have ever seen offered for sale. In fine condition.