Wege zur Raumschiffahrt. Mit 4 Tafeln und 159 Abbildungen. 3. Auflage von “Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen”.

München und Berlin, Verlag von R. Oldenbourg, 1929. 8vo. XII,+ 431,+ (1) pp.+ 4 folding plates, three printed in red and black. Illustrated. Pencilled underlinings and notes. Publ. cloth, with dust jacket somewhat worn and with some loss of paper along the edges, top edge green. In a protective mylar sleeve. Owner’s signature of G. de Koningh on front fly leaf. Alicke, The Moon in Science & Fiction 262: ”still the most important theoretical work on the subject”. Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel (1959), p. 507. Third and greatly enlarged edition of Oberth’s classic book on rocketry, first published as “Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen” (1923), and the first work to receive the REP-Hirsch International Astronautics Prize, founded in 1928 by French rocketry pioneer Robert Esnault-Pelterie and André-Louis Hirsch. This third edition is dedicated to Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, who directed and wrote the screenplay for the science fiction film ”Frau im Mond” (1929), for which Oberth served as a consultant. In his text, Oberth set out to prove four propositions. Firstly, that there was sufficient technology at the time to build machines that could rise above the earth’s atmosphere. Secondly, that these machines could be fast enough to prevent them from falling back to earth and escape the planet’s gravitational pull. Thirdly, that such machines could be built to carry human beings. And fourthly, that their manufacture could be profitable under certain conditions. Together with the Russian Konstatin Tsiolkovsky and the American Robert Goddard, among others, the Austro-Hungarian born German physicist and engineer Hermann Oberth (1894-1989) is considered one of the true pioneers of rocketry. The signature in this copy possibly belongs to the early-20th-century Dutch instrument maker G. de Koningh in Arnhem.