Page "Willy Ley" Paragraph 5

The " rocketry fad " culminated with Fritz Lang's 1929 film Die Frau im Mond (" Woman in the Moon "), which became the first realistic depiction of spaceflight in cinematic history.

Although Oberth is often credited as the main technical consultant to the film, Ley's role was of central importance.

Oberth was tasked with building a small rocket, to be launched at the film's premiere.

This project never materialized.

However, Ley's work on the movie did.

As director Fritz Lang later recalled, " The work he had done as consultant and advisor ... was amazing.

The models of the spaceship, really a highly advanced model of a rocket, the trajectories and the orbits of the modular capsule from the earth, around the earth, and to the moon and back ... were so accurate that in 1937 the Gestapo confiscated not only all models of the spaceship but also all foreign prints of the picture.