Les fusées, véhicules de l'avenir

Hans K. Kaiser, René Rodier (trans.)
Year1954
PublisherAmiot-Dumont
PlaceParis
LanguageFR
Pages176
SeriesBibliothèque de l'Aviation
Rating★★★☆☆ (3/5)
AudienceGeneral, Student
LevelBeginner
Keywords
astronauticspropulsionrockethistory of scienceWorld War II
ThemesSpace Race, Launchers & Propulsion

A short popular handbook first issued in German in 1949 as Kleine Raketenkunde (Mundus-Verlag, Stuttgart) and translated into French in 1954 by René Rodier for Amiot-Dumont's Bibliothèque de l'Aviation, edited by General Corniglion-Molinier. Across five chapters and two appendices (annotated bibliography, technical glossary), Hans K. Kaiser surveys rocket history from antiquity to 1953, explains reaction-propulsion principles, sketches the foundational work of Goddard, Oberth and Sänger and of the Gesellschaft für Weltraumforschung, then details modern developments with a substantial section on German wartime missiles (A4/V-2) and early postwar American programmes. The book opens with a Hermann Oberth epigraph.

📖 Editorial Review

A short German postwar handbook, translated into French four years later, that gave the curious 1954 reader an accessible overview of the field, without adding anything original to it. …