A canister containing the remains of Willy Ley, a popular space writer in the United States during the 1950s through the 1970s, was found in a basement in a house in Queens, New York. The woman who found the canister had no idea of who Willy Ley was, not finding any Leys in the phone book. But soon, to her great surprise, she became notified of her find. She is now trying to find a way of sending his ashes into space.
Ley was involved in the early space program in the 1930s. He met Wehrner von Braun as a young man. According to his accounts, von Braun came to Ley’s house when he was struggling at the piano on a particular sonata piece. When invited, von Braun sat down at the piano and played Beethoven’s Sonata No. 14, Opus 27, No. 2 (called the “Moonlight” sonata) from memory. For two decades, Ley published new editions of his landmark book, Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel, updating it as the program developed.
