"HERMANN OBERTH: THE SPACE DREAM", by Margaret Stucki.
THE MUSEUM OF EUROPEAN ART
10545 Main Street
Clarence, New York 14031 (USA) Tel.: 716 - 759 - 6078
Open Tuesdays to Fridays, 10 - 5 pm and Saturdays, 1 - 4. Admission free.
"HERMANN OBERTH: THE SPACE DREAM", by Margaret Stucki.
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, the Museum of European Art will mark the anniversary by honoring the rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth, who was born 105 years ago on June 25, 1894.
In the mission control on the ground, the legendary Wernher von Braun, the director and the moving force behind the mission to the moon, and his teacher and mentor, Professor Hermann Oberth watched the realization of one of their life-long dreams.
They were the first to land on the moon: On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on our neighbor in space. Sixteen seconds later he was followed by Edwin Aldrin, while Michael Collins circled the moon in the "mother ship." On a plaque which they left on the moon stand the words: "Upon this spot, men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon. We came in peace for all mankind."
A scale model of the Lunar Module "Eagle" is now on display at the Museum, as well as a model of Hermann Oberth's "Kegeldüse," the rocket engine which he developed and tested in 1924.
The exhibition, prepared in cooperation with the Hermann-Oberth Rocket and Space Flight Museum in Feucht (near Nuremberg) in Germany, includes interesting documentary photographs from the life and work of Hermann Oberth, and a number of his books. Among them are his first two books "The Rocket Into Interplanetary Space" (1923) and its much expanded "Ways to Space Travel" (1929), called the "bible of scientific astronautics." In these two books, Professor Oberth proved, using mathematical formulas, that space travel is possible, and outlined its fundament principles. Hermann Oberth's ideas, so courageously expounded in these two early books contain the basic principles of space travel in use today.
"Hermann Oberth has breathed life into the age of space, nurtured it, and watched it grow," said Neil Armstrong once about the space pioneer. And Ernst Stuhlinger, one of the top scientists and a former close associate and colleague of Wernher von Braun and Professor Oberth, had this to say about the moon landing in 1969: "Mankind's first tentative steps toward its neighbors in space may be compared with the bold steps those aquatic animals undertook 200 million years ago when for the first time they left their familiar watery abode and ventured into the thoroughly hostile environment of dry land."
Hermann Oberth -- Half a Century Ahead , by Konrad K. Dannenberg
Mankind's Technological Tasks for the Future , by Hermann Oberth
The Ideal Situation , by Hermann Oberth
Politics and Art, by Hermann Oberth
Politics: The Price of Freedom, by B. John Zavrel
Copyright 1999 Museum of European Art