Гаэтано Крокко (Gaetano Crocco) - итальянский пионер аэронавтики, ракетостроение и астронавтики.
В мировом масштабе не первой величины звезда, но как-никак занимался вопросами ракетных двигателей и космонавтики с 1923, в т.ч. ЖРД с 1929. До того - строил дирижабли.
После войны, кажется, немножко поработал в военных целях над твердотопливными ракетами (подозреваю, что вместе с ним или параллельно с ним мог в то время работать Оберт), и занимался некоторыми теоретическими вопросами космонавтки (похоже, в основном баллистикой).
Из того, что находится навскидку - наиболее подробное описание в английской Вике.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaetano_Arturo_Crocco
Gaetano Arturo Crocco (26 October 1877 – 19 January 1968) was an Italian scientist and aeronautics pioneer, the founder of the Italian Rocket Society, and went on to become Italy's leading space scientist.
In 1927, Crocco begun working with solid-propellant rockets and,
in 1929, designed and built the first liquid-propellant rocket motors in Italy. He began work with
monopropellants (fuel and oxidizer combined in one chemical liquid) in 1932, making him one of the first researchers in this field.
As head of the School of Aeronautics of the University of Rome, he performed research on flight mechanics, structural design, and high altitude flight in addition to his work in rocket propulsion.
In 1923 Crocco started studying space flight, jet propulsion and rocket fuels. In 1927 the Aeronautic Experimental Institute where Crocco was working, obtained a 200,000 ItL financing (equivalent to today’s 1million Euro) to develop
blackpowder fuelled rockets to be tested later in a BPD firing range at Segni, east of Rome. He moved onto
research on liquid fuels, drawing plans for the first Italian-built combustion chamber, tested in 1930 with the help of his son, Luigi Crocco. The outbreak of WWII and lack of financing confined Crocco to academic activities: he directed the Aeronautic Engineering School from 1935 to 1942 and then again from 1948 to 1952, when Luigi Broglio succeeded him in the post. In those years Crocco wrote hundred of papers and patented so many inventions that his students used to say in mock poetry ‘Everything I use or see,/ oh my Crocco is made by thee’.
After WW II Crocco went back to his old passions, missiles and astronautics, creating in 1950 an informative course on superior ballistics within the Aeronautic Engineering School.
In the inaugural speech he spoke extensively on man-made satellites and rocket trajectories. More [показать]In 1951 he founded the Italian Rocket Association (AIR) to rally all the fans of the new astronautic science. In 1951, a full decade before the Gagarin space flight, he held a meeting on the problems of a manned spaceship re-entry in the atmosphere. Later on he devised a parallel-stages vector, a futuristic solution as compared to superimposed stages. In 1956 Crocco, more than 80 years old, produced what is considered his most important contribution to world astronautics: in his “One-Year Exploration-Trip Earth-Mars-Venus-Earth” paper presented at the Seventh Congress of the International Astronautical Federation IAF, Rome, in 1956, he suggested exploiting the Mars and Venus gravitational fields as propelling forces to cut dramatically the travelling time of a space capsule. The importance of his intuition, now a scientific theory known as ‘gravitational slingshot’ or ‘gravity assist’ or ‘swing-by’, was such that the NASA recommended the study of his theories and especially the swing-by maneuvers suggested by Crocco to all the contracting firms working on interplanetary flight and its perspectives.
The ‘Crocco Mission’ or ‘Crocco Grand Tour’
Basing his calculations on Hohmann’s orbit, the sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke had stated once that an Earth to Mars flight with a minimum fuel consumption would require at least 259 days. Then another 425 days should elapse on the Red Planet to re-align the planets so as to travel back again in 259 days. Crocco deemed this period too long and drew his own calculations exploiting Mars gravity pull to fly over the planet without landing. Mars gravity would deflect the spaceship’s trajectory towards the Earth cutting the flight’s overall length to less than a year, the only objection being the poor quality of data gathered passing over Mars at an altitude of more than a million miles. But, Crocco added, should the spaceship be re-directed towards Venus and not the Earth, it would fly over Mars at a very closer range: observation by the astronauts would be much more satisfactory, and moreover they could observe Venus as well, still keeping the trip’s time under a year. He calculated 113 days from Earth to Mars, 154 to reach Venus from Mars and 98 days from Venus back to Earth and affirmed that the first occasion for this ‘Crocco Grand Tour’ would be occurring in 1971. Gravity assist manoeuvres as envisaged by him are used extensively in all interplanetary missions today.
Вопрос: а никому не попадались его работы или хотя бы подробные биографии о на русском, или хоть английском, или хоть даже итальянском?