Gaetano Arturo CroccoDied 19 Jan 1968 at age 90 (born 26 Oct 1877).Italian pioneer in aeronautics and space science who designed revolutionary airships and patented an early cyclic pitch design for helicopter rotors (1906). While the design of helicopters was in its infancy, Crocco recognized that a way to change the pitch cyclically on the blades was needed if a helicopter was to work properly in forward flight. He designed a number of airships in the early part of the 20th century and switched to designing rocket engines in the 1920s. Crocco founded the Italian Rocket Society (1951) and made many contributions to the theory of spaceflight. He calculated that a spacecraft could travel from Earth to Mars, perform a reconnaissance Mars flyby (without orbit), and return to Earth in a total time of about one year.« |
