C-1 (Canadian Moon Rocket)

From The Space Library

The C-1 was a large rocket proposed by the Canadian Rocket Society in August/September of 1948. Blueprints for the rocket were drawn up by CRS leaders Captain Edward Fox and Kurt Richard Stehling. A six-foot tall model of the C-1 was exhibited at the Canadian National Exhibition in the summer of 1948. The model was built by 49-year-old Sam Kernerman in his basement. Kernerman died in 2000 at the age of 101. The blueprints were taken by Fox to New York City in 1949 and shown to famed aviation pioneer Alexander de Seversky. Press coverage for the Canadian design appeared in Sky & Telescope, Science and Mechanics, and Current Science magazines. Fox wrote an article describing the rocket in Tattersall's Club Magazine in October 1949. The 200' nuclear powered launch vehicle seems to predate other similar proposals for such a large rocket by Hermann Koelle at the GfW in Germany in 1949 and by Willy Ley in his September 1949 book Conquest of the Moon.