Max Valier (9 February 1895 – 17 May 1930) was an
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n
rocket
A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entir ...
ry pioneer. He was a leading figure in the world's first large-scale rocket program,
Opel-RAK, and helped found the German ''
Verein für Raumschiffahrt
''Verein'' is a German word, sometimes translated as ''union'', ''club'' or ''association'', and may refer to:
* '' Eingetragener Verein'' (e. V.), a registered voluntary association under German law
* Swiss Verein, a voluntary association under ...
'' (VfR – "Spaceflight Society") that would bring together many of the minds that would later make
spaceflight
Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in ...
a reality in the 20th century.
Biography
Valier was born in
Bozen
Bolzano ( or ; german: Bozen, (formerly ); bar, Bozn; lld, Balsan or ) is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third la ...
in the
County of Tyrol
The (Princely) County of Tyrol was an estate of the Holy Roman Empire established about 1140. After 1253, it was ruled by the House of Gorizia and from 1363 by the House of Habsburg. In 1804, the County of Tyrol, unified with the secularised ...
(now
South Tyrol
it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol
, settlement_type = Autonomous province
, image_skyline =
, image_alt ...
) and in 1913 enrolled to study
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
at the
University of Innsbruck
The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...
. He also trained as a
machinist
A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who not only operates machine tools, but also has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling ...
at a nearby factory. His studies were interrupted by the First World War, during which he served in the
Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1 ...
army's air corps as an aerial observer.
After the war, Valier did not return to his studies, but became a freelance science writer. In 1923, he read
Hermann Oberth
Hermann Julius Oberth (; 25 June 1894 – 28 December 1989) was an Austro-Hungarian-born German physicist and engineer. He is considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, along with Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Konstantin Ts ...
's landmark book ''
Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen'' (''The Rocket into Interplanetary Space'') and was inspired to write a similar work to explain Oberth's ideas in terms that could be understood by lay persons. With Oberth's assistance, he published ''
Der Vorstoß in den Weltenraum'' (''The Advance into Space'') the following year. It was an outstanding success, going through six editions before 1930. He followed this with numerous articles on the subject of space travel, with titles like "Berlin to New York in One Hour" and "A Daring Trip to Mars".
![Opel RAK1 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Opel_RAK1_2.jpg)
In 1928 and 1929, he worked with
Fritz von Opel
Fritz Adam Hermann von Opel (4 May 1899 – 8 April 1971) was a German rocket technology pioneer and automotive executive, nicknamed "Rocket-Fritz". He is remembered mostly for his spectacular demonstrations of rocket propulsion that earned him an ...
on a number of rocket-powered cars and
aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...
within the world's first large-scale rocket program
Opel-RAK. For von Opel, these experimentations had also a very positive public relations effect for the
Opel
Opel Automobile GmbH (), usually shortened to Opel, is a German automobile manufacturer which has been a subsidiary of Stellantis since 16 January 2021. It was owned by the American automaker General Motors from 1929 until 2017 and the PSA Grou ...
company, and for Valier, they were a way of further raising interest in rocketry amongst the general population.
Friedrich Sander ''
Friedrich Wilhelm Sander (25 August 1885 in Glatz (Kłodzko) – 15 September 1938) was a German pyrotechnics and rocket technology engineer as well as manufacturer remembered for his contributions to rocket-powered flight as key protagonist of ...
in these endeavours was chosen as the supplier of solid-fuel rocket motors. Valier's and von Opel's activities led to land and rail vehicle speed records and eventually to the world's first rocket plane. The first public flight took place on September 30, 1929, piloted by von Opel. After the
Opel RAK.1
The Opel RAK.1 (also known as the Opel RAK.3) was the world's first purpose-built rocket-powered aircraft. It was designed and built by Julius Hatry under commission from Fritz von Opel, who flew it on September 30, 1929 in front of a large crowd ...
flight, caused by the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, the Opel RAK collaboration came to an end, von Opel left Germany in 1930, emigrated to the US and eventually to France and Switzerland. Valier then continued the rocket development on his own.
By the late 1920s, the VfR was focusing its efforts on liquid-fuelled rockets. Their first successful test firing with liquid fuel (five minutes) occurred in the Heylandt plant on 25 January 1930. On 19 April 1930 Valier performed the first test drive of a
rocket car
A rocket car is a land vehicle propelled by a rocket engine. A rocket dragster is a rocket car used for competing in drag racing, and this type holds the unofficial world record for the 1/4 mile.
Fritz von Opel was instrumental in popularizing ...
with
liquid propulsion
A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket utilizes a rocket engine that uses liquid propellants. Liquids are desirable because they have a reasonably high density and high specific impulse (''I''sp). This allows the volume of the propellant ta ...
, the ''Valier-Heylandt Rak 7''.
Valier was killed less than a month later when an alcohol-fuelled rocket exploded on his test bench in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
. His
protégé Arthur Rudolph
Arthur Louis Hugo Rudolph (November 9, 1906 – January 1, 1996) was a German rocket engineer who was a leader of the effort to develop the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany. After World War II, the United States Government's Office of Strategic Ser ...
went on to develop an improved and safer version of Valier's engine.
Memorials
Max Valier is still remembered in South Tyrol as one of the most famous inventors and scientists of this province, and a number of institutions bear his name:
*The South-Tyrolean amateur astronomy society ''Amateurastronomen Max Valier'' and their public astronomical observatory "Max Valier" in Gummer (BZ Italy)
*The Technological Institute "Max Valier" in Bolzano, Italy
*The
Max Valier X-ray telescopic satellite launched in 2017 orbits the earth transmitting
Morse Code
Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...
on 145.96MHz and 437.325MHz.
References
Data pages, Historic American Engineering Record for the Marshall Space Flight Center, United States Library of Congress
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Valier, Max
1895 births
1930 deaths
People from Bolzano
People from the County of Tyrol
Austrian inventors
Austrian male writers
Austrian physicists
Early spaceflight scientists
German spaceflight pioneers
Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I
University of Innsbruck alumni
19th-century male writers
Burials at the Westfriedhof (Munich)
Inventors killed by their own invention
Austrian emigrants to Germany