Des premières fusées au V-2

A 63-page pamphlet by Alexandre Ananoff published in 1947 as no. 14 in the "Problèmes" series at Éditions Elzévir, edited by Maurice Decloux. Conceived as a historical counterpart to Ananoff's earlier Navigation interplanétaire (1935), the work traces the long genealogy of rockets: medieval Chinese and Arabic gunpowders (Marcus Graecus, Roger Bacon), nineteenth-century war rockets (Hale, Bedford, the École de Pyrotechnie de Metz), the pioneering work of Pomertzeff, Riabouchinsky and Goddard, the German Raketenflugplatz experiments and Esnault-Pelterie's French trials, through to von Braun's V-2 and the first American firings at White Sands in 1946. The subtitle asks what the peaceful uses of this technology will be. Illustrated from the author's private collection.