Editing Hermann Oberth (section)

==Early life==

[[File:Hermann Oberth in his early years.jpg|thumb|left|Hermann Oberth as a young boy, {{circa}} 1901]]
Oberth was born into a [[Transylvanian Saxons|Transylvanian Saxon]] family in Nagyszeben (Hermannstadt), [[Kingdom of Hungary]] (today [[Sibiu]] in [[Romania]]);<ref>{{cite book |first= Joseph E.|last= Angelo |title= Space Technology |year= 2003 |publisher= [[Greenwood Press]] |page= [https://archive.org/details/spacetechnology0000ange/page/70 70] |isbn= 1-57356-335-8 |url-access= registration |url= https://archive.org/details/spacetechnology0000ange/page/70 }}</ref> and besides his native [[German language|German]], he was fluent in [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] and [[Romanian language|Romanian]] as well. At the age of 11, Oberth's interest in rocketry was sparked by the novels of [[Jules Verne]], especially ''[[From the Earth to the Moon]]'' and ''[[Around the Moon]]''. He was fond of reading them over and over until they were engraved in his memory.<ref>{{Cite book |title= Rockets Into Space |last= Winter |first= Frank |year=1990 |isbn= 0-674-77660-7 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/rocketsintospace0000wint/page/18 18] |publisher= Harvard University Press |url= https://archive.org/details/rocketsintospace0000wint/page/18}}</ref> As a result, Oberth constructed his first [[model rocket]] as a school student at the age of 14. In his youthful experiments, he arrived independently at the concept of the [[multistage rocket]]. During this time, however, he lacked the resources to put his ideas into practice.

In 1912, Oberth began studying medicine in [[Munich]], [[German Empire|Germany]], but after [[World War I]] broke out, he was drafted into the [[German Army (German Empire)|Imperial German Army]], assigned to an infantry battalion, and sent to the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]] against [[Russian Empire|Russia]]. In 1915, Oberth was moved into a medical unit at a hospital in [[Sighișoara|Segesvár]] (German: Schäßburg; Romanian: Sighișoara), [[Transylvania]], in Austria-Hungary (today Romania).<ref name="ianzer">{{cite web|first=Jürgen Heinz|last=Ianzer|url=http://aspera.ro/files/user_uploaded/108/oberth.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://aspera.ro/files/user_uploaded/108/oberth.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Hermann Oberth, părintele zborului cosmic|trans-title=Hermann Oberth, Father of the Cosmic Flight|pages=3, 11, 13, 15|language=ro}}</ref> There he found the spare time to conduct a series of experiments concerning [[weightlessness]], and later resumed his rocketry designs. By 1917, he showed designs of a missile using liquid propellant with a range of {{convert|290|km|abbr=on}}  to [[Hermann von Stein (1854-1927)|Hermann von Stein]], the [[Prussian Minister of War]].<ref name=Monde>''Mort de Hermann Oberth, pionnier de la conquête spatiale'' ("The Death of Hermann Oberth, Space Conquest Pioneer"), in ''[[Le Monde]]'', 1 January 1990, pp. 3, 16, accessed on 7 October 2006.</ref>

On 6 July 1918, Oberth married Mathilde Hummel, with whom he had four children. Among Oberth's children, one lost his life as a soldier during [[World War II]]. His daughter, Ilse (born 1924), died on August 28, 1944, in an accidental explosion at the Redl-Zipf V-2 rocket engine test facility and liquid oxygen plant where she worked as a rocket technician.

In 1919, Oberth once again moved to Germany, this time to study physics, initially in Munich and later at the [[University of Göttingen]].
In 1922, Oberth's proposed doctoral dissertation on rocket science was rejected as "utopian". However, professor [[Augustin Maior]] of the [[Babeș-Bolyai University|University of Cluj]] in Romania offered Oberth the opportunity to defend his original dissertation there in order to receive a doctorate.<ref>{{cite book |url= http://phys.ubbcluj.ro/despre/Augustin%20Maior/Augustin%20Maior.htm |title= Augustin Maior |date= 19 October 2016 |access-date= 19 October 2016 |archive-date= 11 September 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130911192022/http://phys.ubbcluj.ro/despre/Augustin%20Maior/Augustin%20Maior.htm |url-status= live }}</ref> He did so successfully on 23 May 1923.<ref name="ianzer"/> He next had his 92-page work published privately in June 1923 as the somewhat controversial book, ''Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen''<ref name="Oberth_a">{{cite book |last=Oberth |first=Hermann |date=1923 |title=Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen |publisher=Oldenburg, Munich, Germany}}</ref> (''The Rocket into Planetary Space'').<ref name="Oberth_a2">{{cite book |last=Oberth |first=Hermann |date=2014 |title=The Rocket into Planetary Space |publisher=[[De Gruyter Oldenbourg]] |place=Berlin |isbn=978-3-486-75463-6}}</ref> By 1929, Oberth had expanded this work to a 429-page book titled ''Wege zur Raumschiffahrt'' (''Ways to Spaceflight'').<ref name="Oberth_b">{{cite book |last1=Oberth |first1=Hermann |title=Ways to Spaceflight |url=https://archive.org/details/nasa_techdoc_19720008133 |via=archive.org |publisher=NASA |access-date=21 December 2017 |language=en |date=1970 |orig-date=1929}}</ref> Oberth commented later that he made the deliberate choice not to write another doctoral dissertation. He wrote, "I refrained from writing another one, thinking to myself: Never mind, I will prove that I am able to become a greater scientist than some of you, even without the title of Doctor."<ref name="kiosek">[http://www.kiosek.com/oberth/ "Hermann Oberth, Father of Space Travel", at] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190226184423/http://www.kiosek.com/oberth/ |date=26 February 2019 }}. Kiosek.com (29 December 1989). Retrieved on 2015-06-27.</ref> Oberth criticized the [[Education in Germany|German system of education]], saying "Our educational system is like an automobile which has strong rear lights, brightly illuminating the past. But looking forward, things are barely discernible."<ref name="kiosek"/>

Oberth became in 1927 a member of the ''[[Verein für Raumschiffahrt]]'' (VfR) – the "Spaceflight Society" – an amateur rocketry group that had taken great inspiration from his book, and Oberth acted as something of a mentor to the enthusiasts who joined the Society, which included persons such as [[Wernher von Braun]], Rolf Engel, [[Rudolf Nebel]] or [[Paul Ehmayr]]. Oberth lacked the opportunities to work or to teach at the college or university level, as did many well-educated experts in the physical sciences and engineering in the time period of the 1920s through the 1930s – with the situation becoming much worse during the worldwide [[Great Depression]] that started in 1929. Therefore, from 1924 through 1938, Oberth supported himself and his family by teaching [[physics]] and [[mathematics]] at the [[Stephan Ludwig Roth]] High School in [[Mediaș]], Romania.<ref name="ianzer"/>