Oberth, Hermann Julius

Oberth, Hermann Julius,

1894–1989, Austro-German astronautical pioneer, b. Hermannstadt, Austria-Hungary (now Sibiu, Romania). Beginning his studies in astronautics before World War I, he first proposed a liquid-propellant rocketrocket,
any vehicle propelled by ejection of the gases produced by combustion of self-contained propellants. Rockets are used in fireworks, as military weapons, and in scientific applications such as space exploration.
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 in 1917 and in 1923 published his unsuccessful Ph.D. dissertation, The Rocket into Interplanetary Space, which discussed many aspects of rocket travel. He expanded this small pamphlet into a larger work, The Road to Space Travel (1929), which won wide recognition. During World War II he worked with Wernher von Braunvon Braun, Wernher
, 1912–77, German-American rocket scientist and astronautics engineer, b. Germany, grad. Berlin Technological Institute (B.S., 1932), Univ. of Berlin (Ph.D., 1934).
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 in the German rocket program at Peenemünde; he again worked with von Braun in the United States after the war.