Slovenia is a super small aerospace great power

Slovenia will become member of European aerospace agency on 11 may 2008.


* Slovenian physicist Dušan Petrač is today one of the leading scientists in NASA.
*Mother of Sunita Williams - United States Naval officer and a NASA astronaut is a Slovene.
* Anton Mavretič worked for NASA from 1972 to 1979 and contributed to project Voyager 1 in Voyager 2.

*The most important "spaceman" from Slovenia was Herman Potočnik Noordung. (look picture)(1892-1929)

Herman Potočnik (December 22, 1892 - August 27, 1929) was a Slovene rocket engineer and pioneer of cosmonautics (astronautics). He is remembered for his work addressing the long-term habitation of space.

Potočnik was born in Pola, southern Istria,(now Pula, Croatia. His family originated from Slovenj Gradec and Vitanje, Slovenia.

1928 - He published book , Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums - der Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel - The Rocket Motor). Book comprehend 188 pages and 100 illustrations. Potočnik set out a plan for a breakthrough into space and the establishment of a permanent human presence there. He conceived a space station in detail and calculated its geostationary orbit. Potočnik described the use of orbiting spacecraft for detailed observation of the ground for peaceful and military purposes, and described how the special conditions of space could be useful for scientific experiments.

Potočnik's book described geostationary satellites (first put forward by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky) and discussed communication between them and the ground using radio, but fell short of the idea of using satellites for mass broadcasting and as telecommunications relays (developed by Arthur C. Clarke in his Wireless World article of 1945). The wheel-shaped space station served as an inspiration for further development by Wernher von Braun in 1953. Von Braun saw orbiting space stations as a stepping stone to travel to other planets. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick's ground-breaking film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, depicted such a role for "Space Station V."

Potočnik died of pneumonia in great poverty at the age of 36 in Vienna, Austria and was buried there. An obituary notice about his death was printed in one Maribor daily newspaper, mentioning his ranks (engineers and captain), his illness and nothing about his work about space. Streets in Graz and Ljubljana now bear his name.