Hohmann, Walter (1880–1945)
German rocket engineer who was a prominent member of the Verein
für Raumschiffahrt (German Rocket Society) in the late 1920s. His book
Die Erreichbarkeit der Himmelskörper (The Attainability of Celestial
Bodies), published in 1925, was so technically advanced that it was consulted
decades later by NASA when planning its first interplanetary probes. In
it, he describes his "power tower" spacecraft, a huge cone-shaped rocket
with an egg-shaped manned capsule at the top, and, more importantly, the
interplanetary transfer orbits that have been named after him (see Hohmann
orbit). He also wrote popular works in the field of rocketry, as did
his contemporaries Willy Ley and Max Valier.
Related categories
• ROCKET
ENGINEERS AND SPACE SCIENTISTS
• HISTORY
OF ROCKETRY
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