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Commemorative postal card Nike-Apache, Start 12.11.1964 from the ship Croatan and from Wallops Island following the route.
Nr. 34 of 50 postal cards. Signed by Schmiedl at the vignette (17/96).
Very fine condition.
The Austrian engineer Friedrich Schmiedl fired the world’s first postal rocket on 2nd February 1931 which transported 100 letters from Schoeckel to Sankt Radegund. He began with what he called 'regular mail service' in September 1931 with launch of his G1 rocket from Hochtroetsch to Semriach. Schmiedl dreamed of using enormous rockets to transport long-range mail from Vienna to Budapest and Graz to Budapest, or to deliver mail to remote oases in North Africa. But the Austrian Post office obtained a law prohibiting further rocket mail activities in 1934, followed by a general government ban on private rocket development in 1935.
After the second world began, he destroyed his rocket work, not wanting it to be used for military purposes. Similarly he refused an offer after the war to go to the United States and conduct further rocket research.
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