Guido von Pirquet (30 March 1880 – 17 April 1966) was an Austrian pioneer of astronautics and a Baron of a lower noble family. Born near

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, he was educated at

Technische Hochschule A ''Technische Hochschule'' (, plural: ''Technische Hochschulen'', abbreviated ''TH'') is a type of university focusing on engineering sciences in Germany. Previously, it also existed in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands (), and Finland (, ). ...

in Vienna and

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

. He developed an interest in rocketry, building and testing model rockets in 1927. In 1928, he proposed the idea of building a

space station A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station i ...

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

(LEO) for fueling vehicles to travel to the other planets. He published detailed calculations for this type of mission. For this reason, he (together with Herman Potočnik) is considered the "father of the space station". Along with Rudolf Zwerina, he founded the ''Austrian Society for Rocket Technology'' in 1931. His interest in rocketry waned following the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

in 1938. Guido von Pirquet is one of several scientists working in the pre-spaceflight era (1920-1957) who fully understood the promise of the

gravity assist In orbital mechanics and aerospace engineering, a gravitational slingshot, gravity assist maneuver, or swing-by is the use of the relative movement (e.g. orbit around the Sun) and gravity of a planet or other astronomical object to alter the p ...

method for reducing flight time and increasing payload to the outer planets. He gave detailed formulas showing how close passage of Jupiter could be used to make a large change in the velocity and orbital energy of a spacecraft. His vector diagrams clearly show the gravity assist mechanism that are identical to those used later by Krafft Ehricke (1956) and much later by Minovitch (1961). Minovitch claims incorrectly that he is the "inventor" of the gravity assist space flight technique.. Pirquet crater on the Moon is named after him. He was inducted as an honorary fellow of the

British Interplanetary Society The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), founded in Liverpool in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest existing space advocacy organisation in the world. Its aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration. Str ...

in 1949, their highest honor. In 1976, he was inducted into the

International Space Hall of Fame The New Mexico Museum of Space History is a museum and planetarium complex in Alamogordo, New Mexico dedicated to artifacts and displays related to space flight and the Space Age. It includes the International Space Hall of Fame. The Museum of S ...

. His brother,

Clemens von Pirquet Clemens Peter Freiherr von Pirquet (12 May 187428 February 1929) was an Austrian scientist and pediatrician best known for his contributions to the fields of bacteriology and immunology. Career Born in Vienna, he studied theology at the Universit ...

, became a scientist and pediatrician.

References

1880 births 1966 deaths Austrian aerospace engineers Early spaceflight scientists Barons of Austria {{Austria-engineer-stub