Jakov I. Perelman
From The Space Library
In 1915 Y. I. Perelman (1882-1942), a well-known popular science writer, published in Petrograd his remarkable book Interplanetary Travel,
which saw 10 printings within 20 years. He wrote the book on the basis of a report under the same title which he delivered in 1913.
The book is a survey of the techniques and modes whereby science fiction writers transported their heroes into space. The author discussed the gun of Jules Verne, the hypothetical material of H.G. Wells that protects from the force of gravity, and its opposite—one that is “transparent” for gravity and therefore unaffected by it, some screen of the pressure of light using the repellent effect of solar radiation, and, finally, Tsiolkovsky’s rocket.
Perelman concluded that only rockets were capable of lifting man into space.
Other popular science books by Perelman include Flight to the Moon (1924), Tsiolkovsky (1924), To the Moon by Rocket (1930), To the Stars by Rocket (1933). (Source: V.P. Glushko)
