Question: What and when was the first technical society for the purpose of both establishing initial credibility for aeronautical researchers (and circumventing the issue of early researchers becoming increasingly disenfranchised from the established scientific community) as well as establishing a professional identity?
A) the Societe Aerostatique et Meteorologique de France, 1852
B) the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, 1866
C) the Prussian subcommission of the Second International Congress of Aeronautics, 1900
D) the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, 1905
In developing any aspect of science or technology, technical credibility is critical (the present system of peer evaluation, dissemination of information in publications, and of course the dynamism of interaction between researchers). The Royal Society of London was the first such, in 1662, incorporated under a royal charter. The first meeting of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain was held at the residence of the Duke of Argyll on January 12, 1866. But the first was actually the one in Paris, France well over a decade earlier, in 1852 by aeronaut Jules-François Dupuis-Delcourt organized the Société Aérostatique et Météorologique de France, the first scientific body to study aviation. It later became the Société Française de Navigation Aérienne. The FAI of course is the world governing body for air sports and aeronautics and astronautics world records (following a resolution passed by the Olympic Congress held in Brussels on June of 1905).
The answer is choice A.
