Though I’d think not as well known as Arthur C. Clarke’s The Exploration of Space, which was published in 1951, John Leonard’s Flight Into Space follows much the same theme, presenting an overview of the technical aspects of rocketry, the biological and neurological effects of astronautics on the human body, space travel (well, within the solar system!), and, scientific knowledge about the moon and planets, all with a serious but easy literary style. Of course, the book’s content is now quaintly dated, which is vastly less a reflection of Leonard’s ability as a writer, than it is a measure of the enormous technological and scientific advances made in the 79 years since 1954.
As for the cover art, the artist is unknown. The painting lacks a signature, and the artist’s name is unmentioned on the title page. However, by looks alone, it seems to have been done by Stanley Meltzoff. At least, it seems so to me.
Jonathan N. Leonard Dies at 71; Author and Time Science Editor
May 16, 1975
Jonathan Norton Leonard, author and former science editor of Time magazine, died yesterday in Roosevelt Hospital. He was 71 years old and lived in Hastings‐on‐Hudson, N.Y., and Sandwich, Mass.
As science editor of Time from 1945 to 1965, Mr. Leonard was a witness to major scientific events of those years, including the early flights of satellites and rockets, experiments investigating genetic mysteries and the development of electronic computers. He was among the first to report on nuclear fission.
His ability to describe complex scientific events in simple terms made him a leading popularizer of science.
A member of an old Sandwich, Mass., family, he embarked on a career as a freelance writer after graduating from Harvard University in 1925 and selling a number of short stories to The Saturday Evening Post.
His early books included the biographies “Loki: The Life of Charles Proteus Steinmetz” and “The Tragedy of Henry Ford” and “Three Years Down,” short history of the Depression.
He joined Time in 1943 as Latin‐American editor. He was a staff writer for Time‐Life Books from 1965 to 1968.
His many works on scientific subjects included “Enjoyment of Science,” “Flight Into Space” and “Planets” with the Cornell University astronomer Dr. Carl Sagan.
His more recent books in the Time‐Life series included “Ancient America,” “Early Japan,” “The World of Thomas Gainsborough” and “Atlantic Beaches.”
He wrote many reviews for The New York Times Book Review.
In Sandwich, Mass., he was a cranberry farmer by avocation.
Surviving are his widow, the former Maria Alzamora; a son, Jonathan A. of Arlington, Va., and a sister, Mrs. Bradford Shaw of Sandwich.
My recent posts about the reality of space warfare – as imagined in Astounding Science Fiction in 1939 – present articles by Malcolm R. Jameson and Willy Ley, and, readers’ responses. That Willy Ley would figure so prominently in this topic is hardly surprising, for by profession he was a science writer with a lifelong focus in rocketry and space exploration, though his interests did extend further, encompassing the pseudoscience of – *ahem* – cryptozoology. The true scope of his enormous output can be fully appreciated by even the quickest glance at his biographical profile at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. He body of work was quite multi-faceted, for it comprised a novel, letters, book reviews, interior art (primarily in 1948 issues of Astounding), twenty-two perhaps-more-better-known non-fiction books, as well as – well, primarily! – essays and articles for mid-twentieth-century science fiction pulps. An example of the latter is his oeuvre for Galaxy Science Fiction, whichbetween 1952 and 1969 published over 150 of his articles under the heading “For Your Information”.
His straightforward science journalism was accompanied by four (or five, depending on how you count?!) works of fiction. The “first” four are…
“At the Perihelion” (1937) “Orbit XXIII-H” (1938) “Fog” (1940) “The Invasion” (1940)
…the first three of these having been published in Astounding, and “The Invasion” in Super Science Stories.
Having read “Fog” (while preparing this post, and my posts about Space Warfare), I have to confess that I found it to be utterly underwhelming. Except for being placed in a metropolitan setting in post-1940s America, it’s much more a tale of totalitarian surveillance (hmmm…!) and political chaos (hmmm…?) in a dystopian future, I think inspired by Ley’s own experiences in Nazi Germany, from which he fled in early 1935. So, the simple title – it is apropos! – connotes the constant sense of uncertainty that pervades daily life in such a situation. (Once again, hmmm…!!) Otherwise, Charles Schneeman’s two illustrations for the story were better than the mere story itself!
Given Willy Ley’s huge body of work and influence in popularizing rocketry and space exploration, the abundance of information about him is entirely unsurprising. However, while delving into his biography amidst my posts on space warfare, I came across the following poignant news item by New York Times science writer Walter Sullivan: It’s Willy Ley’s obituary, published after his passing on June 24, 1969. While the obit doesn’t necessarily present information not already known and available elsewhere, it’s still of historical interest in terms of the details of Ley’s personal life, and, how a figure so significant in the worlds of science and journalism (like Walter Sullivan, himself!) was perceived in the popular press.
Here it is:
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Willy Ley, Prolific Science Writer, Is Dead at 62
Prophesied Travel in Space in Book Issued in 1926 Fled Germany in ‘35 – Tested Rockets in Westchester
By WALTER SULLIVAN
The New York Times June 25, 1969
Willy Ley, who helped usher in the age of rocketry and then became perhaps its chief popularizer, died yesterday morning at his home In Jackson Heights, Queens. His age was 62.
Mr. Ley, the author of more than 30 books in English and German, was a frequent lecturer as well as teacher and industrial consultant.
His death, apparently from a heart attack, came suddenly. About a week ago a medical checkup had disclosed a circulatory disorder and he was taking digitalis.
Earlier in the day, in a telephone conversation with a book publisher, Mr. Ley spoke of the possibility that he might have to follow man’s first flight to the moon by television from his home, instead of from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Texas. It was a disappointing prospect, for Mr. Ley had been one of the earliest protagonists of such a flight.
He was born in Berlin in 1906 and his early studies, at the Universities of Berlin and Konigsberg, were in astronomy, physics, zoology and paleontology (the study of fossils). Some of his most successful books were on exotic beasts of fact and myth.
However, in 1927 he and his German colleagues were inspired by the writings of Hermann Oberth to found the Society for Space Travel. A punctilious registrar in Breslau at first refused to permit the group to incorporate under the title Verein fur Raumschiffahrt because, he said, the last word of the title (meaning “space travel”) did not exist in the German language.
Collaborated on Films
Mr. Ley’s first book on space travel appeared in 1926 and during that period he collaborated with Fritz Lang in several German science-fiction films, including one entitled “Frau im Mond” (“Woman in the Moon”).
(Here’s “Frau im Mond”, from Daily Motion.)
(And, a sort-of-counterpart to Lang’s film, from a decade later: Vasili Zhuravlov’s “Cosmic Voyage” (Космический Рейс – Kosmicheskiy reys) from 1936.
Among those whom he recruited into the Society for Space Travel was a young man named Werner Von Braun who ultimately became a leader in German military rocket development. After World War I, when Dr. Von Braun had begun working with the American rocket program, he and Mr. Ley collaborated on several books including “The Exploration of Mars.”
As the Nazis rose to power they were determined to take over rocket research from the society. The latter, through a series of flights with primitive liquid-fueled rockets from an abandoned ammunition dump on the outskirts of Berlin, had shown that rockets could be used to circumvent provisions in the Versailles Treaty forbidding German development of artillery.
In 1935, Mr. Ley got word to Dutch and British friends that he was in trouble with the Gestapo. He had been ordered to cease writing on rocketry for foreign publications and did so, but some of his earlier articles being held in reserve by British newspapers appeared after this edict.
Mr. Ley left for Britain and then was brought to the United States under the auspices of the American Interplanetary Society (which about this time changed its name to the American Rocket Society). Members of this group put up bond to permit his entry into the country.
Built Test Stand
Mr. Ley lived for half a year with G. Edward Pendray, head of the American Rocket Society, and the two men built a test stand for small rockets near Mr. Pendray’s home in Crestwood, N.Y. It was in a swamp between Scarsdale and Bronxville.
Mr. Pendray recalled yesterday the alarm of neighbors at the roaring of rockets on their test stand. However Mr. Ley’s activities as an experimenter gave way to concentration on writing.
He turned out a steady stream of books and articles. Interest in rocketry and space travel was low at the time and his titles ran to such subjects as “Salamanders and Other Wonders,” “Dragons in Amber” and “The Lungfish, The Dodo and the Unicorn.”
However when the rockets developed by his former colleagues in Germany began flying across the English Channel, there was a dramatic change. The demand for expert writing on rocketry became insatiable.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ley in 1940 joined the newspaper PM as science editor and soon met a Russian-born ballet dancer, Olga Feldman [Feldmann], who was writing a column on physical fitness for the newspaper. They were married in 1941.
Soon afterward, Mrs. Ley was doing research for her husband at a public library and read to him, over the phone, certain information on rockets that she had uncovered there. Someone in the next phone booth overheard transmission of this information in a Russian accent and reportedly notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
It took a certain amount of explaining to convince the Federal authorities that nothing untoward was going on.
In 1944 he became a United States citizen and left PM. He became further identified with space travel with such books as “Watchers of the Skies,” “Conquest of Space” and “Rockets, Missiles and Men in Space.” He also developed a powerful lecture style.
One close acquaintance noted yesterday that Mr. Ley’s big frame and German accent conspired to give him an impressively authoritative manner. Perhaps, he suggested, that was why Mr. Ley unconsciously retained the accent, even though he became fluent in his spoken and written English.
One of those who knew him well said he was a natural lecturer, “not only on the platform, but in private.”
“If you asked him a question you got a lecture,” he said, adding that Mr. Ley’s knowledge was “encyclopedic.”
Mr. Ley enjoyed good food, good drink and good conversation and belonged to a small convivial group of writers and scholars known as the “Trap Door Spiders,” who met once a month. The name, members say, is based on the practice of such spiders in closing a trap door to escape their mates.
He was a great admirer of Wagner operas and could accompany himself on the piano as he sang- Wagnerian arias.
Publishing associates said yesterday that Mr. Ley had at least six books under contract. He had told Scribners that next Monday he would deliver the final section of “Man and the Moon,” a major work, in preparation for five years. It deals with the role of the moon in music and literature.
Mr. Ley, one of his book editors said, was “like those 19th-century natural scientists who were up on every field of science.” He had been on the faculty of Fairleigh Dickinson University for many years.
While Mr. Ley was an ardent promoter of trips to Mars and other distant bodies, his earliest passion was for the moon.
“The moon is still silvery in the night sky,” he wrote in The New York Times last year, “but it is no longer unreachable.”
“In 1930 I introduced a number of aeronautical engineers in Berlin to the first liquid fuel rocket they had ever seen,” he said. “It stood about 5 feet tall and, even when fueled, was light enough to be lifted with one hand. It could climb about 1500 feet and was brought back by parachute.
“What, the engineers wanted to know, was the aim of all this? Eventually, I replied, rockets of this type will carry men to the moon.”
Mr. Ley lived to within one month of the scheduled fulfillment of his prophecy.
Besides his widow, he is survived by two daughters, Sandra Ley and Mrs. Xenia Parker of 252 East 61st Street. Since World War II Mr. Ley had lived at 37-26 77th Street in Jackson Heights
The funeral will take place ‘tomorrow at 1 P.M. at the Walter B. Cooke funeral home, 1504 Third Avenue.
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Despite Willy Ley’s prominence in the history of science journalism, oddly, no information is available about his place of burial. However (!), if we’re talking biographical details, here’s the Declaration of Intention for American citizenship that he filed on June 22, 1937, five months after he reached Miami – from Havana – on February 2 of that year. Note that, appropriate to his current and future career, he listed his profession as “Scientific Research Writer”. (This document’s from Ancestry.com.)
A Reference or Two, or Three, and More, for Willy O.O. (Otto Oskar) Ley, at…
…Archive.org – Publications (262 scanned works – includes monographs, but primarily comprised of issues of science-fiction pulps featuring his articles.)
…Project Gutenberg (7 books. These appear to be juvenile or young adult fiction, all authored by Carey Rockwell, with Willy Ley as “Technical Advisor”.)
First published in 1951 by Sidgwick and Jackson, Arthur C. Clarke’s The Sands of Mars, his second novel following Prelude to Space, has thus far been republished about seventy times.
The image below shows Anchor Books’ edition of June, 1959 – chronologically the ninth edition of the book – featuring a lovely cover by Robert Schulz. In much the style of 50s era paperbacks published by Anchor Books and Pocket Books, the “action” is mostly confined to the right portion of the page, leaving a margin on the left for the publisher’s logo, the book’s serial number, and (can’t forget that!) the price.
Interestingly, the illustration isn’t really too “Marsy”, unless you consider the planet (if it is a planet) in the background to be Mars. Well, with its mottled reddish appearance (has kind of a Richard Powers look to it), it might be Mars… if so, perhaps the “action” is taking place on Demos or Phobos? Those spacesuits are, well, interesting, for the design appears to be a hybrid between a deep-sea diving suit, and, the flexible, multi-ringed joints envisaged in space suit concepts from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Well, in any event, the scene is obviously not intended to be taken too literally, for Schulz simply incorporated symbols, technology, and scenery relating to space exploration in a very pleasing, eye-catching way.
As “no man is an island” – to use a hackneyed but entirely true aphorism – neither is any field of knowledge. The arenas of the arts, humanities, and sciences, disparate as they may be, have long intersected with and influenced one another in ways ranging from the intellectual, to the cultural, to the artistic. And, beyond. Certainly this has long been so in illustrations associated with science fiction, in venues ranging from books, to pulp magazines, to cinema, to the virtual world. By nature and intent, all of these present visions of worlds past, present, and future – and often “parallel” – based on the science and technology rooted in the real (or, ostensibly “real”!) world.
Two interesting examples of this appeared in the early 1960s, as cover illustrations for the August, 1962 issue of Amazing Stories, and, the April 1964, issue of Analog Science Fact -> Science Fiction. Though utterly different in artistic style, both compositions pertain to stories based upon the solar sail, a method of spacecraft propulsion by means of the radiation pressure of sunlight.
The Amazing Stories cover is by the very well-known artist Alex Schomburg, whose actual name (as I discovered when writing this post!) was either Alexander A. Schomburg, or, Alejandro Schomburg y Rosa. His painting presents Jack Vance’s story – well, the title is prominently displayed on the cover! – “Gateway to Strangeness”.
“The ship, its great sail spread to the fading sunlight, fled through space like a ghost – out, always out. There were still a billion miles to travel … a billion miles before they’d know whether they would ever come back.”
The Analog cover is by Harvey Woolhiser (actual name James Harvey Woolhiser) for “Sunjammer”, by Winston P. Sanders. As far as I’ve been able to determine, this was the only cover illustration Woolhiser created for Analog, let alone Astounding. Unsurprising: his forte seems not to have been science fiction, albeit he did create a straightforward cover, in muted tones of blue and green, for the November, 1948 issue of Science illustrated, appropriately for the article “Space Travel – Now or Never?”
But, what about “Sanders”? Who was he? (Hmmm… Certainly not Bernie Sanders… Definitely not Colonel Sanders…) At first, I thought he may have been a “one-shot” or at best an infrequent author. Then, a little searching quickly revealed that “Sanders” was actually one of the pen-names of the wonderfully talented Poul Anderson, under which were published these other stories, primarily in Analog.
Pact (1959) Wherever You Are (1959) Barnacle Bull (1960) The Barrier Moment (1960) The Word to Space (1960) Industrial Revolution (1963) What’ll You Give? (1963) Say It With Flowers (1965) Elementary Mistake (1967)
As you can see, not only are the covers different in design, style, and color palette, they’re slightly different in proportion as well: For Amazing Stories, Schomburg’s fits the magazine’s standard digest-size format nicely, while Woolhiser’s conforms to the larger, slick-upscale-coffee-table-ish (Manhattan-advertising-agency? Southern-California aeronautical-engineering-firm? Academic-think-tank? Suburban-office-lounge? University-dorm-room?) format in which Analog was published by Conde-Nast from March of 1963 through March of 1965.
Though both covers depict spacecraft and astronauts – the latter diminutive by virtue of their juxtaposition with spacecraft – I think Schomburg’s image “works” far better, precisely because there’s no central element to the composition: the very center of the scene is “empty” space: Your eye and mind have to “work”, moving from the moon to the earth to the star-mottled indigo blackness of space to the multi-colored sail, its supporting framework, and attached habitation pod. All the colors in the scene balance very nicely against the yellow and black “Amazing” logo at the upper left.
It’s interesting, really.
Though by the 50s and 60s and doubtless much earlier Amazing Stories lacked the gravitas and literary influence of the “big three” – Analog, Galaxy Science Fiction, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – the magazine’s art and illustrations, both cover and interior, sometimes stood – it seems to me – on a visual footing equal to and on occasion much better than those appearing in those publications. Then again, compared to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction that wasn’t too difficult, at least in terms of interior illustrations, for those appeared in that publication in only few issues from the late 1950s, most notably for Ray Bradbury’s “Fondly Fahrenheit”.
So, anyway: An Analog-ous cover… (Please pardon predictable pun!)
…and, moving in for a closer view:
“The difference between ‘nothing’ and ‘practically nothing’ can turn out to be the most exceedingly practical, because anything whatever is an intolerable contaminant in nothing. And if that sounds like nonsense – read on and find out!”
While these two covers depicted science-introducing-fiction during the early 1960s, today, nearly five decades later, they serve – indirectly, symbolically, and effectively – as fiction-introducing-science: Both can be found at the June, 2019 post LightSail 2 Inspires Thoughts on Fictional Sails, at Paul Gilster’s Centauri Dreams website.
Devoted to the presentation of peer-reviewed academic research on the exploration of deep space, Centauri Dreams, which began in August of 2004, encompasses subjects such as the technology of interstellar propulsion and long-duration space travel; the exploration for and identification of extrasolar planets; investigation of the origin, evolution, and nature of other planetary systems; the search for extraterrestrial life (not necessarily alien civilizations a la the works of Arthur C. Clarke or Carl Sagan (whose writings have distinctly theological overtones, with technology and alien intelligence providing a form of secular salvation) but simply plain ole’ “life”, per se, in any form); lengthy philosophical speculation about cosmology, and, well, far more. The majority of the posts are invaluable in presenting summaries of and excerpts from the latest academic journal papers in the fields of astrophysics, astrobiology, and space research, sometimes with an accompanying illustration or two from the original article, and virtually always with links to the original article in either abstract or open-access form.
Fundamentally, what makes the site so worthwhile is that the sense of curiosity, wonder, and speculation inherent to its ethos and mission is undergirded by an appreciation of and respect for solid science.
Well, why not let the website speak for itself? Thus:
“In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities. For the last twelve years, this site coordinated its efforts with the Tau Zero Foundation. It now serves as an independent forum for deep space news and ideas.” Refreshingly (whew!)“…Centauri Dreams is not about the existence of UFOs, nor about alien abductions, ‘ancient astronauts,’ electric universe cosmology or other New Age talking points. It is a review of peer-reviewed research.”
However, that disclaimer is a nice (and slightly ironic!) segue to a significant aspect of Centauri Dreams: Though by no means the central focus of the site, its innumerable posts include a sizeable number (as of mid-2020, I count over twenty) directly pertaining to science fiction. These comprise discussions about landmark, significant, or just plain ‘ole interesting films (the posts about “Dark Star”, “Forbidden Planet”, and Howard Hawks’ “The Thing” are great), the history of science fiction (“Astounding in the Glory Years”, and Poul Anderson’s “We Have Fed Our Sea” / “The Enemy Stars”), literature (note the two 2006 posts on Astounding) and the mutual influence of space exploration and science fiction on one another. In a larger sense, many posts at Centauri Dreams are enhanced by science-fiction cover art from books and magazines, which serve as reference points for the topic at hand.
The site’s science-fiction themed posts are below…
An old favorite of science fiction returns – with a tale of a robot that had patience, a brain adequate to its task, and a slow-working, patient urge to self-destruction.
Illustration by Pasilang R. Isip, for “The Warbler”, by Murray Leinster (p. 85).
Vacation in the Golden Age, by Jamie Todd Rubin “Episode 40: October 1942 – George O. Smith makes his Astounding debut. Also stories by A. E. van Vogt, Lester Del Rey, Malcolm Jameson, and L. Ron Hubbard’s last Astounding appearance for 5 years.”
It seems unlikely that any culture can advance more than a few centuries at a time, on a technological front alone. Morals and ethics must not lag behind science, otherwise (as our own recent history has shown) the social system will breed poisons which will cause its certain destruction.
With superhuman knowledge there must go equally great compassion and tolerance. When we meet our peers among the stars, we need have nothing to fear save our own shortcomings.
