Willy Ley
Willy Ley ( born October 2, 1906 in Berlin, † June 24, 1969 in New York) was science journalist, rocket designer and co-founder of the world's first rocket airfield in Berlin. He has also published under the pseudonym Robert Wiley.
Life and work
Willy Ley studied 1923-1927 zoology, paleontology, astronomy, and physics in Berlin and Königsberg. He then worked as a freelance writer and journalist based in Berlin. In 1925 he turned to the aerospace industry. While not a founding member, Willy Ley had shortly after the founding of the Association for space travel there from August 1927 as member number 20 and was in November 1930 vice-chairman. In this association, which was created at the initiative of Max Valier, many pioneers of rocketry and space travel, such as Wernher von Braun, Hermann Oberth, Rudolf Nebel and others gathered. 1929 Ley acted alongside Hermann Oberth and Rudolf Nebel as a technical consultant for Fritz Lang's science - fiction film Frau im Mond. In the same year he published in a Leipzig journal technical science fiction The Starfield Company, as well as an essay on Conrad Gesner. Already in 1930 he took over friends in the U.S. contact with the sci-fi scene and reported, inter alia, in the Wonder Stories about activities of the German rocket builders, at the same time he wrote in German newspapers about the science fiction of the United States.
As the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in 1934 stipulated that no reports of " rocket science, rocket cars or aircraft, even in novel form " should be published, Ley was deprived of his working basis. In 1935 he emigrated to Britain to the United States and was, inter alia, scientific editor of a daily newspaper, then an engineer at the Washington Institute of Technology. From 1958 on, he worked for NASA and in 1959 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Rutherford.
Until his death in 1969, Ley was one of the most printed science writers in science fiction magazines. His articles on science topics such as space, Mars, Ice Age, meteorites and chemistry appeared in many major magazines. Willy Ley offered readers the opportunity to compare the scientific content of the stories with the actual knowledge of that time, but also provided within reasonable limits to speculation, which in turn inspired the imagination of other authors. For his contribution to the popularization of space, he twice received the Hugo Award in 1953 as a feature writer and 1956 for its " Factsheet Article or Article Series".
Ley published together with other authors, including Wernher von Braun and Chesley Bonestell and together with his wife Olga and books about exotic zoology. In 1955, he joined together with von Braun in the Walt Disney TV Special Man in Space on space travel on, in which he also acted as a technical advisor. Willy Ley also served as a technical advisor to the US- American science fiction television series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.
According to Willy Ley Ley crater was named to the moon back in 1970.
Selected Publications
- Willy Ley (eds. ): The possibility of space travel, Hachmeister & Thal, Leipzig, 1928 (with contributions by Hermann Oberth, St. Francis of Hoefft, Walter Hohmann et al )
- Willy Ley: Konrad Gesner. Life and work. Munich 1929 Signed: . SA 63 (15 /16) ( Munich contributions to the history and literature of the natural sciences and medicine, 15 /16)
- Willy Ley: Race to the planets, in: Mechanix Illustrated, July 1947, English
- Willy Ley: foray into space - rocket and space travel, 1949, ( German edition of ' Rockets and Space Travel', Universe Publishing GmbH Vienna, 392 pages, with drawings and photos).
- Willy Ley: The Astronomy and Econ 1965; 614 pages; some S / W Ill
- W. Ley, W. von Braun: The exploration of Mars; S. Fischer Verlag 1957; 140 pp. with drawings and color illustrations