Austria's Herman Potocnik, `father' of the satellite

By Andreas List

JAKARTA (JP): The synchronous orbit for communication satellites was discovered as early as 1929 by an Austrian.

In a book published in 1929, the Austrian engineer Captain Herman Potocnik described the principle of the synchronous orbit in which terrestrial "space observation points" were able to follow a path in space, 36,000 kilometers above the earth's surface.

It is here that the satellites for our modern telecommunications of today are stationed. The transfer of any intercontinental communication - be it via telephone, telex, fax or television - is only possible with the aid of satellites.

Potocnik's discovery brought the five continents closer together and removed the world's oceans from the technical viewpoint of the exchange of information. The influence on business, politics and military strategy cannot be overestimated.

Potocnik's vision and calculations remained at a theoretical stage as technology to realize them in practice was not to be available for another 50 years.

Space travel is the real adventure of our century. Austria not only took part in the 1991 Soviet Austromir project by sending astronaut Franz Viehbock up in the skies. It is little known fact that a third of the early space pioneers came from Austria, including the "father of space travel", Hermann Oberth.

Influenced by the fantasy novels of Jules Verne, he proved in his pioneering book, The Rockets to the Realms of the Planets that rockets, with their jet propulsion were the only vehicles capable of traveling in the vacuum of space and brought space travel to be considered as a discipline in its own right.

Hermann Potocnik, two years Oberth's senior, was familiar with the technical literature and knew Oberth's book; however, it is not known exactly how he became involved in space travel. Potocnik's life remains, in fact, somewhat mysterious. We can only speculate as to why he used a pseudonym - Noordung - for his publication. Perhaps the involvement with "crazy" ideas such as space travel was looked on disapprovingly by the Austrian military establishment.

Hermann Potocnik was born on Dec. 22, 1892, in the royal naval base of Pola, the son of an Austrian navy doctor. He was thus educated in various places throughout the empire. He graduated from the Technical Military Academy in the town of Modling near Vienna. He was an officer in a railway regiment during World War II. After the war, he studied electronic engineering at Vienna's Technical University.

Staying at a health clinic in the mountainous region of Tyrol, he compiled his pioneering 188-page book. He died of tuberculosis in Vienna on Aug. 27, 1929, at the age of 37.

In the same year, the Berlin publisher Richard Carl Schmidt edited his book The Problem of Space Flights, including 100 pictures, partly in color. It contained theories and drawings concerned with the construction of manned space station designed for long-term occupation, and treated all the essential problems and solutions of manned space travel.

Potocnik proposed the idea of manned, geostationary satellites. The space station was to contain three units: the circular living quarters with a radius of 15 meters, in which artificial gravity would be created through rotation, the solar- powered generator, and the observatory - a separate, air-tight pressure cylinder observing the earth and the skies.

Conditions similar to those on earth were to be maintained, something which has been discarded in today's space flights. the provision of air, water and light as well as communication were to be similarly technically controlled.

Invisible tower

Potocnik's most successful idea was the positioning of three space stations at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers above the earth's surface. At this distance, their orbiting time would be exactly 24 hours and would, therefore, take up a stationary position with regard to the earth. This is the synchronous orbit which all communication satellites use today in geostationary orbit. Due to the fact that the orbital speed of a satellite changes in relation to its distance from the earth, the orbit has to be directly above the equator.

Potocnik had the idea of the synchronous orbit with the image of the invisible "highest tower on earth", which is "an observation point in the empty realm of space."

"Every object circling the earth on the line of the equator, 42,300 kilometers away from the center of the earth, remaining constantly above the very same point of the earth's surface. The object would be above one and the same point on the equator, some 35,9000 kilometers above the earth's surface after taking into account the earth's radius of 6,400 kilometers."

"It would form the top of a very high tower, which, although not being there at all, would have its support replaced by the effect of centrifugal force. This moving 'tower top' could be extended to any size and used for any purpose. A construction could, therefore, be made which although it was connected to earth and, indeed, moved unchanged together with the earth's rotation, was nevertheless situated way beyond the mantle of air in the middle of empty space."

And, as if Potocnik had foreseen the "Star Wars" project, he described this space station as the "most terrifying of weapons."

The actual realization of his vision was still some way into the future. The English science fiction author and former radar officer, Arthur C. Clarke, who published his findings 16 years after the Austrian Captain, added to the idea of the working satellite by introducing, methods of transmitting communication. potonick and Clarke are, therefore, regarded as the "fathers of communication satellites".

The usefulness of satellites for communication purposes was first realized with the invention of the transistor. The electronic components could be contained in such a small volume that they could be installed in a satellite. The first commercial geostationary satellite was the "Early Bird" (U.S.), which has been in orbit since 1965, and is a harbinger of those "super highways" of information which are positioned in great numbers today. Some of them can already transmit more than 10,000 telephone conversations at the same time between Europe and America.

The value of Potocnik's discovery is estimated by the Americans to be in the region of several billion dollars, and is regarded as one of the most valuable inventions of all time.

Andreas List is Counselor at the Austrian embassy in Jakarta.