Les Hommes dans l'espace

This book, originally published in German in 1954 (Econ-Verlag) as Menschen im Weltraum, presents the post-war rocket and spaceflight projects of Hermann Oberth (the German-Romanian astronautics pioneer who authored the foundational Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen in 1923. Across eight technical chapters, Oberth addresses the physiological evolution of humans in orbit, the mathematical treatment of satellite rockets, astronaut equipment, the design of an outer space station, the giant orbital mirror, electric propulsion, the lunar vehicle, and interplanetary perspectives reaching as far as the moons of Jupiter. Prefaced by a biographical introduction from the translator Louis Mengin-Lecreulx, former student of the École Polytechnique, the work combines mathematical rigour with concrete forward-looking vision) only two years before the launch of Sputnik.