Ludvík Očenášek is rightfully one of only two Czechs to be enshrined in the United States Spaceflight Pioneers Hall of Fame. However, few people in the Czech Republic know his name. This year, as we celebrate the 145th anniversary of his birth (4 August 1872-10 August 1949), the National Technical Museum wants to awaken interest in his person with a new exhibition dedicated to his life and inventions. It is no coincidence that the exhibition is on display in Plasy. Ludvík Očenášek’s childhood and the end of his life are connected with the surroundings of Plasy – Dolní Běla, Malenica and Dražná.
Ludvík Očenášek started by manufacturing bicycles, in 1906 he developed his own rotary automobile and aircraft engine and had success with the improvement of the arc lamp. In 1910 he designed his own aircraft. During the First World War he joined the ranks of the Maffie resistance organisation, which fought for the independence of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia from the Habsburg monarchy. At the end of this war he found, for example, a telephone line in Prague between the war ministries in Berlin and Vienna. He successfully intercepted the calls. For his work he was awarded the Czechoslovak Revolutionary Medal 1918. In the interwar period he was engaged in the construction of rockets, which he successfully launched at the end of January and at the very beginning of March 1930. He was convinced that the question was not whether man would get into space, but when. He was 31 years away from realizing this dream. In the 1930s, he and his son Miroslav also perfected the so-called hydrodynamic boat, which propelled a stream of water launched against the direction of the ship’s motion. It was characterised by its low draught. He also filed other improvement proposals and patent applications. In May 1945, at the age of 72, he was severely wounded while fighting on the barricades near the radio building. Ludvík Očenášek was an inventor, putting not only his whole heart but also his capital into his experiments. He went bankrupt several times during his lifetime, fate did not favour him in business. When he died in 1949 in Dražnia, the news of his death was reported in such newspapers as The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Alongside the exhibition, a book of the same name was published about the life and work of Ludvík Očenášek, which was co-published by the National Technical Museum, the town of Plasy and the Forestry Society of the Czech Republic. The author of the book is Michal Plavec, curator of the National Technical Museum’s aviation collection. The book can be viewed and purchased at the ticket office of the Exposition of Buildings.
The exhibition will run from 13 May to 26 November 2017.
