(#135568) WELTUNTERGANG. Max Valier.

WELTUNTERGANG. München: Verlag Natur und Kultur A. G., 1923. Octavo, pp. [1-4] 5 [6] 7-187 [188] [189-192: ads], 10 full-page drawings by Valier and 12 smaller figures in the text, original pictorial tan wrappers printed in brown and black, fore and bottom edges untrimmed. Second, expanded edition. An early book by Valier, a speculation on various ways the Earth might be destroyed, largely by close encounters or collisions with objects in space -- the moon, rogue planets, meteors, etc. -- for which Valier has carefully plotted trajectories (plates 1-10). According to Valier's preface, the text of WELTUNTERGANG [Doomsday] (The cover title is WELTENDE [World's End].) is expanded from a smaller work issued by the same publisher in early 1922. Max Valier (1893-1930), Austrian amateur rocket enthusiast and space popularizer, was an early promoter of the use of rockets for space flight. Educated in physics at the University of Innsbruck, he experimented with rockets in the 1920s with the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel) which he helped found and of which Wernher von Braun and Hermann Oberth were prominent members. His nontechnical book DER VORSTOSS IN DEN WELTENRAUM [The Advance into Space] spread Oberth's ideas to a wide audience. Valier was also interested in using rockets to propel ground vehicles and, together with Fritz von Opel and Friedrich Sander, built the world's first rocket-powered automobile in 1928. Two years later, aged only 37, Valier was killed when a small, steel-cased LOX/alcohol engine, designed for use in the Opel-RAK 7 rocket car, exploded during a test run in his laboratory. Brandt, Der deutsche Zukunftsroman 1918-1945, p. 369. Bloch (2002) 3186. Ex-Bibliothek Kapuzinerkloster with small bookplate on inner front wrapper, small ink stamp on title page and shelf label to spine. Some page edges dog-eared, pulpy paper tanned, overall, a very good copy of a fragile and uncommon production. KVK reports 7 copies. OCLC reports 5 copies in U.S. libraries. (#135568).

Price: $250.00

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