Friedrich Schmiedl
Friedrich Schmiedl was born on 14.05.1902 in Schwertberg in Upper Austria. At the age of five, he launched his first rockets at a garden party and has been fascinated by rockets ever since. He graduated from elementary school, the k. k. Staatsgymnasium and the building trade school in Salzburg. When Russians besieged Premysl in World War I, he proposed in vain to the Imperial and Royal Army High Command the use of post rockets instead of small unreliable balloons. In numerous rocket launches on the Gigerwiese on the Mönchsberg, the student determined the most favourable launch angles. In 1918 Schmiedl tested a rocket helicopter, in 1919 on the Geiereck at Untersberg the bundling and gradual ignition of fireworks. In 1921 Schmiedl began studying chemistry, natural sciences and philosophy at both the Technical University and the University of Graz. Two of his professors received the Nobel Prize. Together with Viktor Hess, the discoverer of space radiation, he investigated the changes in the genetic material of plants both by irradiation and by accelerations up to six times the acceleration due to gravity. The chemist Fritz Pregl studied metabolism, hormones and enzymes. In 1922 Schmiedl built a vacuum test stand to show critics that the recoil principle also works in a vacuum. He corresponded with Albert Einstein, Hermann Oberth, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Willy Ley, Auguste Piccard, Guido von Pirquet and many others. The Austrian rocket pioneer regarded the supply of mail to remote mountain farms and refuges as the first step that could be financed by a lone fighter. After his studies, the civil engineer decided to live as a freelance researcher and inventor in Graz. He earned his living by examining concrete.
At the end of May 1928, Schmiedl raised the FS 1 stratospheric balloon from a meadow in the Murauen meadows of Graz to an altitude of 18,800 metres. It was loaded with meters and the first stratospheric mail. At a height of 16 km an adapted barometer box ignited a 15 cm long powder rocket with a miniature letter. She hasn't been found. The gondola with the envelopes landed in Hungary and was returned to its designer two weeks after the ascent. Schmiedl had drawn the inappropriate conclusion from bends in meteorite orbits that the outer atmosphere of the earth would not turn with the earth and therefore expected the balloon to drift westwards.
Schmiedl often hiked with rockets, cameras and other equipment to the Schöckl Mountain in Graz, where he saw an ideal rocket launch site. He made rockets, balloons, envelopes and many vignettes himself. Without a crane, Schmiedl could build rockets weighing up to 20 kg. He used sodium chlorate and sodium nitrate as fuel in a ratio between 1:6 and 1:3 and made them insensitive to pressure and heat by placing the particles in a rubber solution. Silk paper chips and the use of two types of powder prevented explosions. He lined the coat with asbestos so that the powder would not touch any metal. On 03.07.1928 Schmiedl noted on the unstamped folding letters flown with the test rocket V 2: "The final goal of my rocket flight tests are rocket mail and space flight".
The only one who crashed on fire was the V6 test rocket when he tried to direct it back to the launch site with a shortwave remote control.
On 02.02.1931 Schmiedl V 7 shot from Schöckl to Radegund with measuring instruments and 102 envelopes. It was equipped with remote control and gyro stabilizer.
Longitudinal grooves on the outer casing prevented the recording rocket fired on 21.04.1931 from twisting. After the burner was burned, the system was operated with small cameras and spectrographs for UV measurement in order to detect the sun outside the smoke trail. Originally it was to become the 3rd stage of a "registration space rocket" consisting of 31 tested 20 kg rockets.
On 09.09.1931 Schmiedl R 1 - the first rocket with mail from interested parties - shot from Hochtrötsch to Semriach
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