I'm doing research for a paper regarding early 20th century knowledge of space. Does anybody have any good resources regarding the twenties and thirties and what was actually known about space, radiation in the vacuum of space, how space travel would be possible, how other properties of physics are affected by space or really any other human interest topics regarding space
Especially interested in common beliefs and scientific theories disproved by space travel.
Most resources outside of speaking to goddard's patents usually begin in the late 40s with no mention of anything earlier.
Any help the community could offer would be greatly appreciated
I have this earlier answer on the history of the concept of space travel, mostly in the West (there's a bit on China and Japan as well). The biggest takeaway from that for you, I think, will be: it wasn't until the late 19th century (Jules Verne!) that people proposed rockets as the way to break out of Earth's gravity...but it was very shortly after that that Tsiolkovsky et al. figured out that rockets were the only practical way to do so.
I assume you're covering the "channels versus canals"/life on Mars debate already?
And then I did not cover it in the above post because I was talking specifically about space travel, but for radiation topics--look up Victor Francis Hess and then the Explorer I experiments (especially if you want a case of space-based experiments carrying an earlier theory/conclusion one step further).