section_path: History/Early concepts
section_name: Early concepts
paragraph_text: Early concepts
  
  The first mention of anything resembling a space station occurred in Edward Everett Hale 's 1868 " The Brick Moon ". The first to give serious, scientifically grounded consideration to space stations were Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Hermann Oberth about two decades apart in the early 20th century.
  
  In 1929, Herman Potočnik 's The Problem of Space Travel was published, the first to envision a "rotating wheel" space station to create artificial gravity. Conceptualized during the Second World War, the " sun gun " was a theoretical orbital weapon orbiting Earth at a height of 8,200 kilometres (5,100 mi). No further research was ever conducted. In 1951, Wernher von Braun published a concept for a rotating wheel space station in Collier's Weekly, referencing Potočnik's idea. However, development of a rotating station was never begun in the 20th century.