Pedro Paulet

Pedro Eleodoro Paulet Mostajo (July 2, 1874 – January 30, 1945) was a Peruvian polymath – variously serving as an architect, diplomat, engineer and journalist – who is disputed to be the first person to build a liquid-propellant rocket engine and modern rocket propulsion system.[1][2][3] His experiments and legacy influenced the first scientists of NASA, providing inspiration towards the Space Age.[3][4]

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Paulet and the second or maternal family name is Mostajo.
Pedro Paulet
Born
Pedro Eleodoro Paulet Mostajo

(1874-07-02)July 2, 1874
Arequipa, Peru
DiedJanuary 30, 1945(1945-01-30) (aged 70)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Alma materUniversity of Paris

Early life

Paulet was born to his parents Pedro Paulet and Antonina Mostajo y Quiroz in Arequipa, Peru on July 2, 1874. He was always an active student interested in art and sciences. Since he was a child, he showed a great interest in traveling to space.[5] As a child in Tiabaya District, he would collect unused gunpowder from festivities and use it to launch miniature rockets.[3]

He was orphaned in 1885 and after a period of poverty, was taken in by French priest Hippolytus Duhamel where he would study beside other Peruvian intellects.[6] After Duhamel gifted Paulet the 1865 French novel From the Earth to the Moon, an inspired Paulet would launch homemade rockets as a youth with live animals placed inside, observing the effects rocket travel had on them.[4][7] He would also often play with fireworks as a child, further promoting his interest in rockets.[4]

Education

Being from a humble family, his chances of attending a university were low, though after performing examinations among seven professors and the rector of the National University of Saint Augustine in 1890, he was admitted into the university.[3] At the age of 18, Paulet was awarded a scholarship to the Institute of Applied Chemistry at the University of Paris while simultaneously attending the Beaux-Arts de Paris to study architecture.[3]

Career
The Avión Torpedo System reportedly conceptualized in 1902 was a rocket-powered aircraft featuring an aircraft canopy fixed to a delta wing on a swivel for horizontal or vertical flight.

In 1902, Paulet designed a liquid-fueled "rocket engine" for the Avión Torpedo aircraft, with the proposal being in complete contrast to the intellectual interest in gunpowder rockets at the time.[4] He would spend decades seeking funds for the project, though he ultimately did not find donors.[4]

Paulet's claims were unknown prior to October 27, 1927, when the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio published a letter he wrote, in which he claimed to have conceived a "rocket airplane project" 30 years prior.[8] Replying to comments in 1927 by Austrian inventor Max Valier discussing a rocket powered aircraft crossing the Atlantic Ocean faster than Charles Lindbergh, Paulet – the Peruvian consul in Rotterdam at the time – criticized Valier's proposal and recommended an aircraft powered by liquid-propellant rockets, stating that he had made plans for a rocket-propelled aircraft thirty years prior.[9] Paulet's recommendation occurred at a time when news of Robert H. Goddard's 1926 liquid-propellant rocket launch was not notable, details about the Goddard's work had not reached Europe and in fact, no liquid-propelled rockets had been launched yet in Europe.[10] A unique feature of Paulet's rocket design was its difference from Goddard's; unlike Goddard's rocket, Paulet's rocket utilized an intermittent fuel injection process that provided more efficiency and stability.[11]

Visiting the German rocket association Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR), Paulet's liquid-propelled rocket design was applauded by Valier.[12] Paulet would finally gain interest in his work from Nazi Germany, though he refused to work with the government and never shared the formula to his liquid propellant.[4] The Nazi government would then appropriate the work of Paulet while a Soviet spy in the VfR, Alexander Boris Scherchevsky, possibly shared Paulet's work with the Soviet Union.[13]

Diplomatic

Into the 1930s, Paulet promoted the development of Peru on the international stage, publishing an outline on how Germans could migrate to the nation and assist with its development.[14]

Legacy
The Paulet I-C of the National Commission for Aerospace Research and Development, launched in December 2021

The work of Paulet left a lasting legacy for the first scientists during the Space Age.[4] According to Wernher von Braun in World History of Aeronautics, Paulet's endeavors in France warranted him to "be considered the pioneer of the liquid fuel propulsion motor", further stating that "by his efforts, Paulet helped man reach the Moon".[4][5][15] Frederick I. Ordway III, the co-author of World History of Aeronautics, would later attempt to discredit Paulet's discoveries in the context of the Cold War and to shift the public image of von Braun away from his history with Nazi Germany.[2][13]

Paulet's Avión Torpedo was featured in a Google Doodle to commemorate the birthday of Pedro Paulet in 2011.[16] In Peru, the National Commission for Aerospace Research and Development launched a series of rockets bearing Paulet's name.[17] Beginning in 2016, he was prominently featured on the 100 soles banknote of the Peruvian Nuevo Sol.[4] The Peruvian Air Force, in its Aeronautics Museum in Lima, also has a "Pedro Paulet Hall" exhibit, where the original sketches and scale models of Paulet’s claimed inventions, are on view.[5]

See also

References
  1. R. Cargill Hall; International Academy of Astronautics; American Astronautical Society (November 1986). History of rocketry and astronautics: proceedings of the third through the sixth History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics. Published for the American Astronautical Society by Univelt, Inc. (P.O. Box 28130, San Diego, Ca. 92128). p. 25. ISBN 978-0-87703-260-1. Retrieved 21 July 2011. Just how many of his ideas were original and how many derived from these sources it is impossible to determine. Based on information available in October 1969, his claim of having experimented with liquid-propellant rocket motors in Paris in the late 1890s cannot be proved. To date, no actual witnesses have been located, nor any solid evidence uncovered as to the possible existence of the rocket motor.
  2. Ordway, III, Frederick I. (October 1969). The Alleged Contributions of Pedro E. Paulet to Liquid-Propellant Rocketry (PDF). Third History Symposium of the International Academy of Astronautics. Living in Europe in the 1920s, Paulet certainly had an opportunity to become acquainted with the work and writings of German and French rocket and astronautical innovators. Just how many of his ideas were original and how many derived from these sources it is impossible to determine. Based on information available in October 1969, his claim of having experimented with liquid-propellant rocket motors in Paris in the late 1890s cannot be proved. To date, no actual witnesses have been located, nor any solid evidence uncovered as to the possible existence of the rocket motor.
  3. "Pedro Paulet, el peruano cuyos diseños inspiraron a los ingenieros del Apolo 11". El Comercio (in Spanish). 2019-07-21. Retrieved 2022-03-14.
  4. "El peruano que se convirtió en el padre de la astronáutica inspirado por Julio Verne y que aparece en los nuevos billetes de 100 soles". BBC News (in Spanish). Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  5. Madueño Paulet de Vásquez, Sara (Winter 2001–2002). "Pedro Paulet: Peruvian Space and Rocket Pioneer". 21st Century Science & Technology Magazine.
  6. Mejía 2017, pp. 96–97.
  7. Tauro del Pino, Alberto (2001). Enciclopedia Ilustrada del Perú. Vol. 12 (3 ed.). Lima. pp. 1987–1988. ISBN 9972-40-149-9.
  8. McMurran, Marshall William (December 2008). Achieving Accuracy: A Legacy of Computers and Missiles. Xlibris Corporation. pp. 187–. ISBN 978-1-4363-8106-2. Retrieved 21 July 2011. Pedro Paulet, a Peruvian scientist, made the only known claim to liquid propellant rocket engine experiments in the nineteenth century, but he was slow in publishing his work. Finally, in 1927, Paulet wrote a letter to a newspaper in Lima ...
  9. Mejía 2017, pp. 113.
  10. Mejía 2017, pp. 103.
  11. Mejía 2017, pp. 104.
  12. Mejía 2017, pp. 115–116.
  13. "Un documental reivindicará al peruano Paulet como pionero de la astronáutica". EFE (in Spanish). 2012-04-05. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  14. Paulet, Pedro (1931). "WIRTSCHAFTLICHE ENTWICKLUNGSMÖGLICHKEITEN VON PERU". Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv. 5 (2): 171–178.
  15. Von Braun, Wernher; Ordway III, Frederick I. (1968). Histoire Mondiale de L'Astronautique. París: Larousse / Paris -Match. pp. 51–52.
  16. "Google dedica su 'doodle' de hoy al ingeniero peruano Pedro Paulet". El Comercio (in Spanish). 2011-07-02. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
  17. "Conida realiza lanzamiento del cohete sonda Paulet 1C". Andina (in Spanish). Retrieved 2022-03-11.

Bibliography
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