Willy Ley
From Free net encyclopedia
Willy Ley (October 2 1906 - June 24 1969) was a science writer and space advocate who helped popularise rocketry and spaceflight in Germany and the United States in the early-mid twentieth century.
Ley was born in Berlin and studied to become a paleontologist. However, he developed an interest in spaceflight after reading Hermann Oberth's book Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen ("By Rocket into Interplanetary Space"). He soon published his own book on the subject, Die Fahrt in den Weltraum ("Travel in Outer Space") in 1926.
In 1927, he became one of the first members of Germany's amateur rocket group, the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR - "Spaceflight Society") and wrote extensively for its journal, Die Rakete ("The Rocket"). With Oberth, he also acted as a consultant on Fritz Lang's film Frau im Mond ("Woman in the Moon").
The VfR disbanded in 1933 amidst controversy within its membership over the interest the military was taking in their activities. Ley decided to flee the Nazi regime and went to the United States in 1935, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1944.
He continued to write extensively on spaceflight in terms that the lay person could understand. His works from the 1950s and 60s are regarded as classics of popular science and include The Conquest of Space (1949), The Conquest of the Moon (with Wernher von Braun and Fred Whipple, 1953), and Beyond the Solar System (1964). He also acted as science consultant for the Tom Corbett series of children's science fiction books and TV series.
Another notable book was Ley's Exotic Zoology (1959). Ley was best known for his books on rocketry and related topics, but he also wrote a number of books about animals. Exotic Zoology (which combined some of Ley's older writings with new ones) is of some interest to cryptozoology, as he discusses the Yeti and sea serpents, as well as reports of relict dinosaurs. The book's first section (Myth?) entertains the possibility that some legendary creatures (like the sirrush, the unicorn or the cyclops) might be based on actual animals (or misinterpretation of animals and/or their remains).
Ley died in Jackson Heights, Queens sadly just a month before the first person set foot on the moon. The Ley crater on the far side of the Moon has been named in his honor.