On the Making of Cannons and Missiles 1400/1569 (Romania) Bound volume, 394 pages, manuscript on paper; with covers: 21 × 16 x 6 cm, without covers: 20,5 × 15 x 5,5 cm National Archive of Romania BU-F-00642-2286 (Centrale, Colecția Manuscrise nr. 2286) Conrad Haas (1509-1576), a famous 16th century military engineer, was a pioneer of rocket propulsion and, indirectly, one of the earliest pioneers of space exploration. Born near Vienna, he went to Transylvania in 1551 and was later appointed Arsenal Master in Sibiu (German: Hermannstadt) by the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I. In 1529 he began writing an ambitious and surprisingly innovative treatise on rocket technology. Using his knowledge of mathematics, chemistry, physics, ballistics and pyrotechnics, he produced a text which presents for the first time many concepts and designs that became established in modern rocket technology. He is thus one of the undisputed pioneers of modern missile and rocket engineering. The...