HERMAN
POTOČNIK NOORDUNG
1892-1929
THE FIRST SPACE ARCHITECT
One of the few photos of Potočnik .
Engineer , rocket technology specialist , military officer , and astronautics and space flight pioneer .
Herman Potočnik Noordung was born on 22 December 1892 in Pula ( Croatia ), where his father , a native Slovenian , was working as a navy physician . Following his father ’ s sudden death , the family moved to his mother ’ s birthplace , Maribor ( Slovenia ), where he completed elementary school . He attended the technical military academy in Mödling near Vienna . A year after finishing his studies in 1913 as an expert in bridge and rail construction , he ended up on the battlefields of the First World War , where he contracted tuberculosis and received a medical discharge at the age of 27 . Despite poor health and financial problems , he managed to graduate from the College of Technology in Vienna . He died on 27 August 1929 in Vienna , where he is buried .
He never went to the United States , however , his visionary ideas were instrumental to the development of space technologies .
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