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.

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.

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[1] "NASA Dictionary of Technical Terms for Aerospace Use".

[2] Dornberger, Walter (1954). V-2. New York: The Viking Press, Inc. p. 18.

[Lem-3] Lem, Stanislaw (1986). Fiasco. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. pp. 309. ISBN 0-15-630630-1.