From first century A.D., starting in Chinese culture, the invention of rocket-like devices have been used in warfare. Ever since then, many people have been building upon these new ideas to create what we know now as modern rockets. During the late 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton created laws that described the physics behind these rockets. The idea of space exploration was first introduced in 1898 by a Russian teacher named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. After him, other scientists began improving this idea and creating devices that could help humans today explore space. NASA was formed to pursue these ideas and explore the world beyond Earth.
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Today’s rockets are magnificent creations of human inventiveness that express the findings of science and technology of the past. These inventions are one out of a thousand years’ worth of experiments and research as a means of perfecting this changing form of technology.
One of the first rocket-like objects to successfully project the principles of rocket flight was the wooden bird. The writings of a Roman named Aulus Gellius tell a story about a Greek named Archytas who entertained and mystified the citizens of Tarentum by creating a pigeon made out of wood. This wooden pigeon is said to have used the action-reaction principle of physics, which, however, was not discovered as a scientific law until the late 17th century. Approximately three hundred years after, Hero of Alexandria, also a Greek, invented the Aeolipile, a similar device as the wooden-pigeon, using steam as a propulsive gas. Hero put a sphere on top of a water kettle. A fire underneath the kettle converted the water to steam, which traveled up to the sphere, causing it to rotate.
One of the first rocket can be dated back to first century A.D. in Chinese culture. To create explosions during religious festivals, the Chinese filled bamboo tubes with a gunpowder mixture (saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal dust) and tossed them into fires. Some of these tubes failed to explode, and instead skittered out of the fires propelled by the gases. From this point onward, the Chinese began experimenting with gunpowder-filled tubes. They attached the tubes to arrows and launched then with bows. They later discovered that these tubes could be launched by themselves only with the help of the gases that were being released.
Despite these rocket-like devices that used the general principles of rocketry, the date of the first actual rocket is reported to be in 1232 during the war between the Chinese and the Mongols. During the battle of Kai-Keng, the Chinese avoided the Mongols by throwing “arrows of flying fire,” which were the one of the simplest form of a rocket. How did these “flying arrows” work? One tube was filled with gunpowder while the other end was left open. A long stick was connected to the tube as a way to guide the rocket in a straight direction. When the gunpowder was ignited, it produced fire, and gas was released from the open end which created a thrusting motion for the tube, propelling it forward.
Following this battle, the Mongols invented their own rockets, which were said to have been the root of the presence of rockets in Europe. From the 13th to the 15th centuries, many rocket experiments took place. A monk from England named Roger Bacon worked on improving gunpowder. Jean Froissart of France worked on making rocket flights more accurate by launching them through tubes. Joanes de Fontana of Italy created the surface-running rocket-powered torpedo, used in setting enemy ships on fire during war.
Nearly all the rockets modeled and used until the 17th century were mainly for warfare. During the late 17th century, the scientific foundations for modern rocketry were set forth by English scientist Sir Isaac Newton. He created laws that explained how rockets work and the science (physics) behind them. Around 1720, scientists throughout Germany and Russia used these scientific laws and began experimenting with rockets of more than 45 kilograms.
In 1898, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian teacher, proposed an idea of space exploration with the use of rockets. For his extensive research about velocities and altitudes, Tsiolkovsky was named the father of modern astronautics.
Beginning early 20th century, American Robert H. Goddard began conducting rocketry experiments. One of his first experiments was with solid-propellant rockets in 1915. Working with this type of rocket, Goddard was convinced that rockets could be propelled better with liquid-propellant, something that no one had tried using before. On March 16, 1926, Goddard successfully launched his first liquid-propellant rocket. Many new scientists came forth in the later years to build upon this successful rocket. The rockets became bigger and flew higher. These scientists developed a gyroscope that helped flight control. They also created a payload section to keep necessary objects in and a parachute system for safe landing. For these achievements, Robert H. Goddard was named the father of modern rocketry.
After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union realized the extremity of the use of rocketry as a military weapon. The United States started with one of Goddard’s earlier ideas, using high-altitude atmospheric sounding rockets, but later using different ranged intercontinental ballistic missiles. These missiles were the starting point of the US space program.
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched an Earth-orbiting artificial satellite called Sputnik 1, something that the world had never seen before. Sputnik 1 was the first successful space race entry between the two superpowers. A few months after the launch of Sputnik 1, the United States launched its own satellite, Explorer 1, on January 31st, 1958.
October of 1958 was the launch of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, whose goal was to explore space “for the benefit of all humankind.” Ever since the organization of NASA, many people and objects have been traveling to space as a means of exploration and even commercial exploitation. Satellites were launched into space as a way to investigate the world outside of the Earth
This journey from flying fire arrows to actually working satellites in space is an amazing way to show how the combination of science and technology has advanced from the 1st century to the 21st century.