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beamjockey(I posted this to sci.space.history, but let's give it a spot on the googlable Web as well.)
Ensign Robert A. Heinlein, then stationed aboard the carrier U.S.S. Lexington, joined the American Interplanetary Society in January of 1931, just months after it was founded. I would guess that he found an announcement about AIS in a science fiction magazine, since he was an avid reader of SF and since several of the AIS's founders were writers or editors of SF.
Years later, Heinlein started writing science fiction himself; decades later, he and his wife donated their papers to the University of California at Santa Cruz; even later, these papers were scanned and made available online.
One of the files, "PERS327-11.pdf," contains an incomplete collection of AIS newsletters from the 1930s. It's not free, but it only costs three bucks to obtain a copy. Each page is watermarked with a faint Heinlein Archives logo.
The file contains issues 5 and 6, 8 through 13, 15 through 19, 21,and 23 through 31, ranging from late 1930 to June of 1935.
Among those whose writings appear in these pages are David Lasser, Lawrence Manning, Robert Goddard, Willy Ley, Fletcher Pratt, and G. Edward Pendray. There is news from rocket developers in other countries, particularly Germany and the USSR. AIS member were actively testing rockets in New York and New Jersey during this period. This work led eventually to the founding of Reaction Motors, Inc.
(The newsletter, Bulletin of the American Interplanetary Society, was renamed Astronautics beginning with the May, 1932 issue, number 19. The AIS was renamed the American Rocket Society in 1934. The organization is an ancestor of today's American Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics.)
I enjoyed looking this collection over. If you're interested in the very early history of rocket societies, you may want to acquire a copy.
Ensign Robert A. Heinlein, then stationed aboard the carrier U.S.S. Lexington, joined the American Interplanetary Society in January of 1931, just months after it was founded. I would guess that he found an announcement about AIS in a science fiction magazine, since he was an avid reader of SF and since several of the AIS's founders were writers or editors of SF.
Years later, Heinlein started writing science fiction himself; decades later, he and his wife donated their papers to the University of California at Santa Cruz; even later, these papers were scanned and made available online.
One of the files, "PERS327-11.pdf," contains an incomplete collection of AIS newsletters from the 1930s. It's not free, but it only costs three bucks to obtain a copy. Each page is watermarked with a faint Heinlein Archives logo.
The file contains issues 5 and 6, 8 through 13, 15 through 19, 21,and 23 through 31, ranging from late 1930 to June of 1935.
Among those whose writings appear in these pages are David Lasser, Lawrence Manning, Robert Goddard, Willy Ley, Fletcher Pratt, and G. Edward Pendray. There is news from rocket developers in other countries, particularly Germany and the USSR. AIS member were actively testing rockets in New York and New Jersey during this period. This work led eventually to the founding of Reaction Motors, Inc.
(The newsletter, Bulletin of the American Interplanetary Society, was renamed Astronautics beginning with the May, 1932 issue, number 19. The AIS was renamed the American Rocket Society in 1934. The organization is an ancestor of today's American Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics.)
I enjoyed looking this collection over. If you're interested in the very early history of rocket societies, you may want to acquire a copy.
