Herman Potocnik Noordung's "Inhabitable Wheel"
In 1929, an Austro-Ungarian Slovene called Herman Potocnik
published a book under the pseudonym of "Noordung". The book
was Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums (The problem of space
navigation). It was the first book to devote most of its pages to
space stations. Noordung proposed the Wohnrad (inhabitable wheel)
design. This strongly influenced the work of technicians and
researchers, as well as of science fiction authors. It inspired many
space station designs during the 1950s, even the one appearing in 2001
- A Space Odyssey.