Jewry's Role in

This Week

Human Affairs

ON THE THRESHOLD OF SPACE

The sky had no limits nor was sound a barrier to the world's foremost
developers of space vehicles and supersonic flight. Among those blazing
paths into such domains were engineers and scientists who are world-
renowned or unsung heroes of Jewish origins. Two stand out.
THEODORE VON KARMAN
(1881-1963) b. Budapest, Hungary Aerodynamic
Engineer A crater on the moon bearing his name
honors a founder of aeronautical and astronautical
science, and a pioneering leader of America's
aerospace industry. The child prodigy in
mathematics was early drawn to engineering.
While still a university student he evolved the
Karman Vortex Street, now a classic principle
defining the vibration of structures under aerodynamic stress--a springboard
to his lasting contributions to supersonic flight and rocket propulsion. In
Austria during World War I, the budding visionary supervised the design
of the world's first helicopter that successfully lifted and hovered.
Fleeing the Nazi threat in 1930, von Karman accepted directorship
of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of
Technology, a mecca for students and for colleagues who shared his
drearns. The inspiring teacher also researched new materials from which
to build lighter and stronger airframes. In 1940 he designed prototypes of
today's solid-propellant rocket engines for long-range missiles. A founder
of the Aerojet Engineering Company and the U.S. Institute of Aeronautical
Sciences in 1932, the internationally respected engineer was presented with
our nation's first National Medal of Science by President John F. Kennedy
in 1963.
ARYE SHTERNFELD
(1905-82) b. Sieradz, Poland Aerospace Engineer
He was one of the unheralded "chief constructors"
of Russian space vehicles, the mathematician and
engineer who among other accomplishments
plotted the 1955 flight of Mechta, the first Soviet
sputnik. Astronautical science in the U.S.S.R.
owed much to his inventive genius which was
earlier nurtured as a young graduate mechanical
engineer from a French university. Several years later he wrote An
Introduction to Cosmonautics, a prodigious work published before his
permanent settlement in the Soviet Union in 1935.
While working intensively with Russian counterparts in designing
planetary probes, satellites and spaceships, Shternfeld authored other
important books on the theory and practice of space exploration: Flight
Through the Cosmos, Artificial Earth Satellites and Interplanetary Travel.
Only recently have such Jewish contributions to Soviet and world science
been fully recognized and justly acclaimed.
- Saul Stadtmauer

In a related admission, U.S.S.R. Premier Nikita Khrushchev informed a
news conference held during his 1959 U.S. visit that, "A single honor for
Russia's launching of its first rocket, Lunik II, to the moon goes to the Jews
of Russia."

Originating Publication: The Detroit Jewish News
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Gentler Reverence

Women say no violence
at wall service is a good sign.

An Orthodox woman admonishes members of the Women of the Wall as
they pray out loud at the Western Wall on June 4.

out for the service, according to a
group member.
The women did not wear tallitot or
Jerusalem
bring a Torah, in keeping with the
he women who gathered at
court ruling which asked them to
the Western Wall on Sunday refrain from doing so for six months.
are taking it as a good sign
After the service,
that they were able
the women moved
to hold a prayer service
to an area in the
without any major inci-
Jewish Quarter
SITE: above the wall,
dent.
Members of Women
loMEN OF TI *WALL: where some of them
of the Wall say they are
wore prayer shawls,
EYEWITNES ,
optimistic that the gov-
tefillin and read from
ernment will carry out a
the Torah,
.4 ,14kW,
recent High Court of
according to the
Justice ruling that
Jerusalem
Post.
ti
allows them to pray as
Some
wor-
\ &
v~p
they see fit at the
shippers at the
Western Wall.
site shouted at the
Aside from some name-calling
group, and Israeli police detained
and attempted egg-throwing from
four Orthodox men who police said
those who believe that women should
planned to throw eggs.
not be allowed to hold formal prayer
services at Judaism's holiest site, the
11-Year Effort
service went ahead without the physi-
The women's service was given heavy
cal confrontation that had been feared.
police protection. The landmark court
An estimated 200 women turned

NAOMI SEGAL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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