Les mémoires d'un astronaute ou l'astronautique française

The memoirs of Alexandre Ananoff (1910-1992), a central figure of French astronautics and organizer of the First International Astronautical Congress (Paris, 1950). Nearly thirty years after the events, the author retraces his path as a self-taught enthusiast won over to the spaceflight cause in the 1920s: the founding of the first astronautics section of the Société Astronomique de France (1938), the priority debates surrounding Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Oberth, Tsiolkovsky and Goddard, the REP-Hirsch Prize, the Hermann Oberth Medal, the birth of the International Astronautical Federation and of the Société Française d'Astronautique. The book reproduces abundant period correspondence (von Braun, Oberth, Sänger, Hirsch) and closes on the author's disenchanted withdrawal toward art history.