The history of the Italian astronautical sector and the A.I.R., the Italian Rocket Association

Abstract

This paper analyses the circumstances and events that led the Italian scientific community to encourage the astronautical sector in Italy at the end of the Second World War. Particularly important was the contribution of the A.I.R., Associazione Italiana Razzi, the Italian Rocket Association, founded in 1951 for the purpose of extending rocket and space culture.At the end of World War I, modern rocket science was already going forward in a number of countries.In the U.S.A., Robert Goddard launched the first liquid propellant rocket in 1926; in the U.S.S.R., Mikhail K. Tikhonravov launched the first Soviet liquid rocket in 1933; in Germany, Hermann Oberth, Wernher von Braun, Karl Becher and Eugen Sänger worked in the Peenemünde and Trauen centres on developing the V-2 rockets. In Italy, during the fascist regime activities focused on the aeronautical sector. In 1935 the Royal Academy of Italy organized the Fifth Volta Congress in Rome and since 1938 eminent scientists Gaetano Arturo Crocco, Antonio Ferri, Luigi Crocco and Antonio Eula had been conducting research in the subsonic and supersonic aerodynamic wind tunnels at Guidonia, near Rome, at the D.S.S.E., the Air Force Ministry's High Directorate for Studies and Tests.In order to increase technical development, in 1937 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini created the Achse Berlin-Rom auch in der Luftfahrttechnik, the Rome-Berlin Axis in the sector of aeronautical technologies. This pact brought about a closer link between Italy and Germany with the exchange of technicians and experts. At that time, the most prominent organizations in the field were the two major aeronautical associations: the Lilienthal-Gesellschaft, in Germany, and the A.I.D.A., the Italian Association of Aerotechnics in Italy.At the end of World War II, Italy was in a critical economic and social situation that also had repercussions on the aeronautical sector; some scientists, Antonio Ferri, Luigi Crocco, Angelo Miele and Carlo Riparbelli among them, were forced to move to the U.S.A. It was precisely at this tragic time that other scientists, among them Gaetano A. Crocco and Antonio Eula, were courageous enough to found a new cultural association called the A.I.R., the Italian Rocket Association, to inject new vigour into the Italian rocket and space sector.This paper recalls these years, before and after World War II, in order to highlight the work done by the A.I.R., a small association that succeeded in giving important impetus to development in the astronautical field, and not in Italy alone. Antonio Eula and Eugen Sänger, whose firm friendship went back to the years of World War II, were among those who, in 1951, founded the I.A.F., the International Astronautical Federation of which Sänger was the first President.