History: After Fireworks Came Weapons and Spacecraft

What's in a name: the etymology of astrobiology

“…Despite facing numerous hardships as a Jewish person navigating the turbulent politics of 20th century Europe, his breakthroughs in astronautics have been gaining belated recognition. In this realm, Sternfeld is known to have presented the mathematical details underpinning bi-elliptic transfer (Sternfeld, 1934) – an intricate manoeuvre that requires lower delta-v in comparison to the famous Hohmann transfer under certain conditions (Denny and McFadzean, 2019, p. 82) – and coined the term ‘cosmonautics’ in his book Initiation á la Cosmonautique (Ivashkin, 2003). While the above quote makes it clear that Sternfeld's view of astrobiology is eerily reminiscent of its modern interpretation, there were preceding works that espoused very different notions of what defined and comprised astrobiology.…”