Brennschluss
Brennschluss (a loanword, from the German Brennschluss) is either the cessation of fuel burning in a rocket or the time that the burning ceases: the cessation may result from the consumption of the propellants, from deliberate shutoff, or from some other cause.[1] After Brennschluss, the rocket is subject only to external forces, notably that due to gravity.
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According to Walter Dornberger, Brennschluss literally meant "end of burning," He goes on to state, "the German word is preferred to the form 'all-burnt,' which is used in England, because at Brennschluss considerable quantities of fuel may still be left in the tanks."[2]
In the 1950s, former German rocket engineer Willy Ley, who had emigrated before the Anschluss and hence never worked on the V-2 rocket, tried to get this term used by the English-speaking aerospace industry.
Cultural references
The term Brennschluss is used in various English literary works, including:
- The science fiction short story Honeymoon in Hell (1950) by Fredric Brown
- The novel Gravity's Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon
- The science fiction novel Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet (1952) written by Harold L. Goodwin (under the pseudonym Blake Savage)
- The science fiction novel The Rolling Stones (also called Space Family Stone) (1952) by Robert A. Heinlein
- The science fiction novel Double Star (1956) by Robert A. Heinlein
- The science fiction novel Fiasco (1986) by Stanislaw Lem[3]
References
- "NASA Dictionary of Technical Terms for Aerospace Use".
- Dornberger, Walter (1954). V-2. New York: The Viking Press, Inc. p. 18.
- Lem, Stanislaw (1986). Fiasco. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. pp. 309. ISBN 0-15-630630-1.