Jan 29 1948

From The Space Library

A letter by Kurt Stehling, President of the Toronto University Rocket Society, appears in the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper under the heading "Space Travel is Held Possible". Stehling rebuts Dr J.W. Campbell's assertions, made earlier that week in a lecture given to the Royal Astronomical Society, that spaceflight was unlikely. Stehling urged the Canadian and British governments to begin long-range rocket programs. Stehling also asserted that rockets could reach the moon within ten years.

Seventy two people turn up at a restaurant on Eugenplatz in Stuttgart for the inaugural meeting of Heinz Hermann Koelle's newly revived Gesellschaft für Weltraumforschung. Koelle was forced to trade cigarettes for coal to heat the room. Koelle delivers the first paper for the society, "Kernprobleme der Weltraumfahrt" (Core problems of space travel). He is followed by M. Gerstenberger who speaks with "Die Möglichkeit organisch Lebens auf anderen Planeten" (The possibility of life on other planets.)