Herman Potočnik (pseudonym Hermann Noordung) was a Slovene rocket engineer and pioneer of cosmonautics (astronautics). He is chiefly remembered for his work addressing the long-term habitation of space.
Potočnik was born in Pola, southern Istria, Austria-Hungary (now Pula, Croatia). His birth is recorded by birth register, which is kept in archive in Pazin. His family originated from Slovenj Gradec and Vitanje, Slovenia.The meaning of his German-like pseudonym Noordung is still a mystery, but some suggest that he used it to show the problems of chaos (German: Ordnung, "order"; ordunga in Slovene colloquial language). Assuming that the initial "N" may have been intended to mean negation, the name would mean "without order".
During the World War I he served in Galicia, Serbia and Bosnia and in 1915 he was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant (Oberleutnant). He was assigned tothe southwestern front of the Soča battlefield and there he experienced a breakthrough of Austrian army to the river Piava and its retreat. In 1919 he was pensioned off from the Austrian military with therank of Captain becauseof tuberculosis that he got during the war. He started to study electrical engineering in the mechanical engineering department of the University of Technology in Vienna. Becoming an engineer, hespecialised in rocketry, and from 1925 he devoted himself entirely to the problems of a rocket science and space technology. Owing to chronic illness, he did not find a job or marry, but lived with his brother Adolf in Vienna.

At the end of 1928, he published his sole book, Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums - der Raketen
-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel - The Rocket Motor) in Berlin.

THE NOORDUNG SPACE STATION

The publisher, Richard Carl Schmidt, printed the year 1929 as a publishing date, probably from a purely business motive (to keep the book looking new throughout the coming year) and this date is often mistakenly given as the actual date of publication. In 188 pages and 100 illustrations, Potočnik set out a plan for a breakthrough into space and the establishment of a permanent human presence there. He conceived a space station in detail and calculated its geostationary orbit. He described the use of orbiting spacecraft for detailed observation of the ground for peaceful and military purposes, and described how the special conditions of space could be useful for scientific experiments. The book was translated into Russian in early 1935, Slovene in 1986 (by the Slovenska matica), English in 1999 (by NASA) and Croatian in 2004 (by Marino Fonović, published by Labin Art Press).
With his many ideas he became one of the founders of astronautics. His concepts were first taken seriously only by the amateur rocketry movement in Germany,the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR - "Spaceflight Society"), centered on Hermann Oberth and his co-workers. In its Russian edition, the book may also have influenced Sergey Korolev's circle. More locally, Viennese engineers dismissed his work as fantasy.
Potočnik's book described geostationary satellites (first put forward by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky) and discussed communication between them and the ground using radio, but fell short of the idea of using satellites for mass broadcasting and as telecommunications relays (developed by Arthur C. Clarke in his Wireless World article of 1945). The wheel-shaped space station served as an inspiration for further development by Wernher von Braun (another former VfR member) in 1953. Von Braun saw orbiting space stations as a stepping stone to travel to other planets. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick's ground-breaking film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, depicted such a role for "Space Station V."
Potočnik died of pneumonia in great poverty at the age of 36 in Vienna, Austria and was buried there. An obituary notice about his death was printed in one Maribor daily newspaper, mentioning his ranks (engineers and captain), his illness and nothing about his work about space. Streets in Graz and Ljubljana now bear his name.

In 1999 a two-day international memorial symposium about his life and work was held at the University of Maribor, celebrating the 70th anniversary of the first printing of his famous book.

 

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