80th Anniversary of first printing of his book "The Problem of Space Travel"

Washington, March 27 - The Embassy of Slovenia, Washington DC, and the Space History Division of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, are organizing a memorial symposium to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the first printing of Potočnik's book The Problem of Space Travel. Potočnik was a pioneer of space travel and modern cosmonautics and astronautics. The goal of the memorial science symposium is to contribute to the popularity of Potočnik’s work and ideas.

The symposium will take place on Thursday, March 27, 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Embassy of Slovenia. Among the participants of the round table will be Dr. Frederick Ordway, a space scientist and a well-known author of visionary books on spaceflight and also a technical consultant to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ms. Sunita L. Williams, the second astronaut of Slovenian origin after Ronald M. Sega to have been selected by NASA for a space mission and Mr. Dragan Živadinov, an artist and cosmonaut candidate from Slovenia.

Herman Potocnik Noordung Exhibit, March 27 - May 17, 2008

On this occasion, the Embassy of Slovenia in Washington will host the exhibit '8008:: The Problem of Space Travel' by Dunja Zupančič, Miha Turšič and Dragan Živadinov. The exhibition thematically deals with the scientific work of Herman Potočnik Noordung. The exhibit also presents a structural framework of the avant-garde performance "Fifty years performance / Noordung :: 1995- 2045." The performance, which premiered in 1995, is repeated every 10 years by the same performers, on the same day, at the same time. It will end on 2045 when actor Dragan Živadinov will place fourteen umbots, highly technological transmissionary replacements of the already dead performers, into the orbit.

The opening of Herman Potočnik Noordung Exhibit will take place after the symposium at 5.30 p.m. at the Embassy of Slovenia.

What experts are saying on Herman Potočnik Noordung:

"Noordung's role in astronautics was no less important than that of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. The difference is that Tsiolkovsky is known to almost everyone, or everyone in astronautical circles today, while almost no one knows of Noordung. I often tried to explain to people that it was in fact Noordung who determined the geostationary orbit and that the proper name would therefore be Noordung orbit. But sometimes people just won't listen."

Arthur C. Clarke, Author and inventor, December 2001, Colombo, Sri Lanka

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"Who is this mysterious Herman Potocnik Noordung? Most of you will probably struggle with the answer when asked. Potocnik was an ingenious
Slovene space pioneer. In 1927 Potocnik sent his manuscripts and engineering sketches to a Berlin based publisher Carl Schmidt under the pseudonym
Herman Noordung. Less than two years later, a ground breaking book "Problems of Space Travel: The Rocket Motor" was published in German. It
managed to spur quite an interest. The most important chapters were immediately translated into English in the United States. The Soviet
national institute for heavy industry published the book in Russian in 1935. In those times early space scientists were already conceiving first
actual space flights. From what is known today, it is safe to say that Noordung's work served as a basis for fathers of Soviet and American space programs?"

Dr. Juri Baturin, Cosmonaut, PhD (physics, law and journalism), January 15th, Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Moscow

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"Potocnik was the first architect for space."

Dr. Tatjana Zelnina, Chief curator of Russian
National Cosmonautics Museum and curator of
Hermann Oberth Museum, April 2006, Feucht, Germany