Within a few weeks of its launch in June 1927, the Society for Space Travel recruited a new member: the young Wernher von Braun, who was destined to become the most influential rocket designer of all. Membership of the Society — mostly young scientists and engineers — soon rose to about 500 and they inaugurated a regular magazine, Die Rakete (The Rocket). Von Braun was among the group (others were Walter Hohmann, Klaus Riedel, Eugen Sänger, Rudolf Nebel and Max Valier as well as Hermann Oberth and Willy Ley) who were popularizing the science of rockets. Valier organized tests of rockets attached to cars, gliders, railway trucks and even sledges. The first tests took place at a former ammunition dump at Reinickendorf, which soon earned the nickname Raketenflugplatz (Rocket Airfield) and today is the site of Tegel Airport.
By 1930 the Society for Space Travel was so well established that its members set up a permanent office in Berlin and agreed a design for a rocket motor powered by gasoline and liquid oxygen. This was the Mirak-1. It had its combustion chamber surrounded by the liquid oxygen tank. The liquid fuel was supplied from a hollow tail stick acting as a storage reservoir. The ‘head’ of the rocket was 1ft (30cm) in length; the tail measured about 3ft (1m) long. The first experimental firing was successful, but the oxygen tank exploded on the second test.
Early in 1931, Karl Poggensee launched his design for a solid-fuel rocket near Berlin. He fitted it with cameras, a speedometer and an altimeter which showed that it reached 1,500ft (450m) before landing by parachute. The first German rocket with liquid fuel was launched in the same year by Johannes Winkler and Hugo Huckel who were independent enthusiasts and not members of the Society. Their choice of fuel was liquid oxygen and methane burned in a rocket some 2ft (60cm) long. Just as had happened with the Mirak-1, the first test near Dessau was successful (the rocket reached 1,000ft, about 300m) but the second test launch in East Prussia failed when fire burst from the rocket and it crashed after reaching an altitude of 10ft (just over 3m). In April 1931 Reinhold Tiling tested a series of four solid-fuel rockets at Osnabrück. One detonated at 500ft (about 150m) but the others were successfully fired — one reaching 6,600ft (2,000m) at a maximum speed of 700mph (1,100km/h). One of his later rockets was reckoned to have reached 11,500ft (3,505m).
Research by the Society for Space Travel was moving ahead. Their new design of rockets was proposed by Willy Ley who called them Repulsors. It is a revealing choice of name. Earlier rockets had been given neutral names, or (like the Huckel/Winkler rockets) were named after their inventors. ‘Repulsor’ sounds much more like a military device and perhaps Willy Ley was already thinking of using military money to further his research. Like the Mirak rockets, the Repulsor burned a combination of liquid oxygen and gasoline but the combustion chamber was cooled by water in a double-walled metal jacket, rather than being cooled by the liquid oxygen. This was an inherently safer design. In May 1931 two of the Repulsor rockets reached a height of 200ft (61m). With the development of the Repulsor-3, an altitude of 2,000ft (610m) was reached and later in 1931 Repulsor-4 rockets were reportedly reaching a mile into the sky. Although rocketry was internationally regarded with indifference — and was usually dismissed, even ridiculed, whenever it emerged — in Germany it was allowing fresh new minds to find satisfaction.
In 1932 the Society for Space Travel first came to the attention of the authorities. This was not because the enthusiasts were seen as brilliant young men, but because there had been complaints about the rocket tests from people living in the area due to the noise. The Society’s members had no specific authorization to carry out testing, and there was a growing fear about the increasing influence of Hitler. Hitler had begun to issue directives that restricted the activities of all organizations that had significant ties to the outside world as his influence began to grow. Members became increasingly nervous and began to drift away. In a period of economic collapse, the Society could not manage to meet its financial obligations without the membership income and later in 1933 the Society for Space Travel finally closed down. It is surprising to realize that world’s first ever rocketry organization — the results of which were to revolutionize warfare — was shut down largely because of pressure from the authorities.
Even after the demise of the Society for Space Travel, some members were able to continue their activities. Some of the senior staff within the German Army had been persuaded that rocketry might yet prove to be important and as early as 1931 they had allowed Society members to conduct a test launch at the army proving ground at Kummersdorf. The rocket they authorized for the launch was a Repulsor. Its name doubtless endeared it to the military Carl Becker. As soon as he saw that the Kummersdorf people were supporting rocket development, Wernher von Braun asked permission to continue his experiments as part of his doctoral thesis on rocket propulsion. His luck was in, and he was authorized to continue to use the Kummersdorf facility. Despite the collapse of the Society Von Braun’s private passion was saved.
Meanwhile an engineer named Franz Mengering, who worked for the City of Magdeburg, had become a devotee of the writings of Peter Bender. Bender propounded the Hohlweltlehr (hollow world doctrine) which held that — instead of being a globe — the world was a hollow sphere. Instead of flying the long way round to Australasia, Bender asserted that it would be quicker to fly straight up in the air. In this way a rocket could easily hit New Zealand. Mengering was convinced that it would be easy to prove, using a small rocket with a message from Germany. If Bender’s theory was correct, then the missile would land near the South Island of New Zealand. Franz Mengering even managed to persuade the authorities at Magdeburg to fund some trial experiments. Rudolf Nebel, one of the founders of the Society for Space Travel, successfully applied for a grant of 25,000 Reichsmarks to fund the design of the rocket. Nebel had joined the Nazi Party and ingratiated himself with the authorities and stated his ambition to fly a man in a rocket 1km (over half a mile) above the earth’s surface, from where he would descend by parachute. The rocket would be designed with his partner Herbert Schäfer. They proposed to launch their rocket in June 1933 as part of a major fair promoting the city of Magdeburg. The idea was to adapt the Repulsor design, with a volunteer secured inside in a torpedo-shaped fairing below the motor. The fuels would be stored in two long tubes trailing behind the rocket. It would be 25ft (7.6m) tall and a 14ft (4.6m) unmanned prototype would be used to prove that the idea worked.