History of rockets
Encyclopedia
The history of rocket vehicles
goes back to the 13th century in China. From there developments occurred in Mongolia, India, Britain, America and Russia among many others.
) to propel projectiles was a precursor to the development of the first solid rocket. Ninth century Chinese
Taoist alchemists
discovered black powder while searching for the Elixir of life
; this accidental discovery led to experiments in the form of weapons such as bomb
s, cannon
, incendiary fire arrow
s and rocket-propelled fire arrows.
Exactly when the first flights of rockets occurred is contested. Some say that the first recorded use of a rocket in battle was by the Chinese in 1232 against the Mongol hordes. There were reports of fire arrows and 'iron pots' that could be heard for 5 leagues
(25 km, or 15 miles) when they exploded upon impact, causing devastation for a radius of 600 meters (2,000 feet), apparently due to shrapnel. The lowering of the iron pots may have been a way for a besieged army to blow up invaders. The fire arrows were either arrows with explosives attached, or arrows propelled by gunpowder, such as the Korean Hwacha
.
Less controversially, one of the earliest devices recorded that used internal-combustion rocket propulsion was the 'ground-rat,' a type of firework, recorded in 1264 as having frightened the Empress-Mother Kung Sheng at a feast held in her honor by her son the Emperor Lizong.
Subsequently, one of the earliest texts to mention the use of rockets was the Huolongjing
, written by the Chinese artillery officer Jiao Yu
in the mid-14th century. This text also mentioned the use of the first known multistage rocket
, the 'fire-dragon issuing from the water' (huo long chu shui), used mostly by the Chinese navy. Frank H. Winter proposed in The Proceedings of the Twentieth and Twenty-First History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics that southern China and the Laotian
community rocket festivals
might have been key in the subsequent spread of rocketry in the Orient.
The Greek author Philostratus
(lived c. 170-247 AD) wrote in Life of Apollonius of Tyana chapter xxxiii that some "wise men" (σοϕοί) lived in a fort in India between the Indus valley and the Ganges, and that when invading armies tried to take the wise men's fort, the wise men drove off the attackers by "πρηστῆρες [= "things which eject strongly") and βρονταί (= "thunders") which were hurled obliquely from above and fell upon their armour."; the Loeb Classical Library
edition translates πρηστῆρες as "rockets of fire".
Rocket technology first became known to Europeans following their use by the Mongols
, Genghis Khan
and Ögedei Khan
, when they conquered parts of Russia, Eastern, and Central Europe. The Mongolians had acquired the Chinese technology by conquest of the northern part of China and also by the subsequent employment of Chinese rocketry experts as mercenaries for the Mongol military. Reports of the Battle of Sejo in the year 1241 describe the use of rocket-like weapons by the Mongols against the Magyars. Rocket technology also spread to Korea
, with the 15th century wheeled hwacha
that would launch singijeon
rockets. These first Korean rockets had an amazingly long range at the time, and were designed and built by Byun Eee-Joong. They were just like arrows but had small explosives attached to the back, and were fired in swarms.
In 1250, the Norwegian
Konungs skuggsjá
mentions, in its military chapter, the use of "coal and sulphur" as the best weapon for ship-to-ship combat
.
Roger Bacon
made one of the earliest mentions of gunpowder in Europe in 1267, in his work Epistola de secretis operibus artiis et naturae. His studies of gunpowder greatly improved the range of rockets. Bacon has been credited by some authors as the inventor of gunpowder (although the first to use it were Chinese), because around 1261 he developed the correct formula for gunpowder (75% of saltpeter
, 15% of carbon
and 10% of sulphur). Jean Froissart
had the idea of launching rockets through tubes, so that they could make more accurate flights. Froissart's idea is a forerunner of the modern bazooka
.
Additionally, the spread of rockets into Europe was also influenced by the Ottomans
at the siege of Constantinople
in 1453, although it is very likely that the Ottomans themselves were influenced by the Mongol invasions of the previous few centuries. In their history of rockets published on the Internet, NASA
says "Rockets appear in Arab literature in 1258 A.D., describing Mongol invaders' use of them on February 15 to capture the city of Baghdad. Quick to learn, the Arabs adopted the rocket into their own arms inventory and, during the Seventh Crusade
, used them against the French Army of King Louis IX
in 1268."
Between 1270 and 1280, Hasan al-Rammah wrote al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), which included 107 gunpowder recipes, 22 of which are for rockets; he arrived to the same results of Bacon 13 years before, because if one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulphur and 15.94% carbon), it is almost identical with the reported ideal recipe. According to Ahmad Y Hassan
, al-Rammah's recipes were more explosive than rockets used in China at the time. He also invented a torpedo
running on water with a rocket system filled with explosive materials. The earliest surviving documentary evidence for the use of the hand cannon, considered the oldest type of portable firearm
and a forerunner of the handgun
, are from several Arabic manuscripts dated to the 14th century. Manuscript illustrations of the hand cannon resemble that of a rocket launcher. Al-Hassan argues that these manuscripts are based on earlier originals and that they report hand cannons being used by the Mamluk
s against the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut
in 1260.
The name Rocket comes from the Italian
Rocchetta (i.e. little fuse), a name of a small firecracker created by the Italian artificer Muratori in 1379. Between 1529 and 1556 Conrad Haas
wrote a book that described the concept of multi-stage rockets.
"Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima" ("Great Art of Artillery, the First Part", also known as "The Complete Art of Artillery"), first printed in Amsterdam
in 1650, was translated to French
in 1651, German
in 1676, English and Dutch
in 1729 and Polish
in 1963. For over two centuries, this work of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
nobleman
Kazimierz Siemienowicz
was used in Europe as a basic artillery manual. The book provided the standard designs for creating rockets, fireballs, and other pyrotechnic devices. It contained a large chapter on caliber, construction, production and properties of rockets (for both military and civil purposes), including multi-stage
rockets, batteries of rockets, and rockets with delta wing
stabilizer
s (instead of the common guiding rods).
-cased and metal-cylinder
rocket artillery
, made from iron tubes were developed by the Hindu weapons suppliers of Tipu Sultan
, a Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, and his father Hyder Ali
, in the 1780s. Tipu Sultan championed the use of mass attacks with rocket brigades within the army, and he wrote a military manual on it, the Fathul Mujahidin
. He successfully used these metal-cylinder rocket
s against the larger forces of the British East India Company
during the Anglo-Mysore Wars
. The Mysore rockets of this period were much more advanced than what the British had seen, chiefly because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant; this enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missile (up to 2 km range). The effect of these weapons on the British during the Second
, Third and Fourth Mysore Wars in 1792 was sufficiently impressive to inspire the British to develop their own rocket designs. Several Mysore rockets were sent to England, who then took an active interest in the technology and developed it further during the 19th century.
According to Stephen Oliver Fought and John F. Guilmartin, Jr. in Encyclopædia Britannica
(2008): "Hyder Ali
, prince of Mysore, developed war rockets with an important change: the use of metal cylinders to contain the combustion
powder. Although the hammered soft iron he used was crude, the bursting strength of the container of black powder was much higher than the earlier paper construction. Thus a greater internal pressure was possible, with a resultant greater thrust of the propulsive jet. The rocket body was lashed with leather thongs to a long bamboo stick. Range was perhaps up to three-quarters of a mile (more than a kilometre). Although individually these rockets were not accurate, dispersion error became less important when large numbers were fired rapidly in mass attacks. They were particularly effective against cavalry and were hurled into the air, after lighting, or skimmed along the hard dry ground. Hyder Ali's son, Tippu Sultan, continued to develop and expand the use of rocket weapons, reportedly increasing the number of rocket troops from 1,200 to a corps of 5,000. In battles at Seringapatam in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British."
Although the technique was familiar to Europeans from the 17th century their use fell out of favor until the late 18th century, when Indian forces from Mysore led by Tipu Sultan
invented iron
rockets for use as rocket artillery against British forces in battle, which led to the British development of the Congreve rocket
. Ironically, the technology of metal-cylinder missiles developed by Tipu Sultan
contributed to the defeat of his ally Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo
.
The major figure in the field at this time became William Congreve
, son of the Comptroller of the Royal Arsenal
, Woolwich, London. Under the influence of the Mysorean rockets
from India, he developed the Congreve rocket
. From there, the use of military rockets spread throughout Europe. At the Battle of Baltimore
in 1814, the rockets fired on Fort McHenry
by the rocket vessel
were the source of the rockets' red glare described by Francis Scott Key
in The Star-Spangled Banner
. Rockets were also used in the Battle of Waterloo
.
Early rockets were very inaccurate. Without the use of spinning or any gimbal
ling of the thrust, they had a strong tendency to veer sharply off course. The early British Congreve rocket
s reduced this somewhat by attaching a long stick to the end of a rocket (similar to modern bottle rockets) to make it harder for the rocket to change course. The largest of the Congreve rockets was the 32-pound (14.5 kg) Carcass, which had a 15-foot (4.6 m) stick. Originally, sticks were mounted on the side, but this was later changed to mounting in the center of the rocket, reducing drag and enabling the rocket to be more accurately fired from a segment of pipe.
Congreve prepared a new propellant mixture, and developed a rocket motor with a strong iron tube with conical nose, weighing about 32 pounds (14.5 kilograms). The Royal Arsenal's first demonstration of solid fuel rockets was in 1805. The rockets were effectively used during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Congreve published three books on rocketry.
In 1815, Alexander Dmitrievich Zasyadko
began his work on creating military gunpowder rockets. He constructed rocket-launching platforms, which allowed to fire in salvos (6 rockets at a time), and gun-laying devices. Zasyadko elaborated a tactic for military use of rocket weaponry. In 1820, Zasyadko was appointed head of the Petersburg Armory, Okhtensky Powder Factory, pyrotechnic laboratory and the first Highest Artillery School in Russia. He organized rocket production in a special rocket workshop and created the first rocket sub-unit in the Russian army.
The accuracy problem was mostly solved in 1844 when William Hale
modified the rocket design so that thrust was slightly vectored
, causing the rocket to spin along its axis of travel like a bullet. The Hale rocket removed the need for a rocket stick, travelled further due to reduced air resistance, and was far more accurate.
with 47 gunpowder-filled rockets was attempted in China by Wan Hu
in the 16th Century. The alleged flight is said to have been interrupted by an explosion at the start, and the pilot did not seem to have survived (he was never found). There are no known Chinese sources for this event, and the earliest known account is an unsourced reference in a book by an American, Herbert S. Zim in 1945.
In Ottoman Turkey in 1633, according to one account, Lagari Hasan Çelebi
launched in a 7 winged rocket using 50 okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder
from Sarayburnu
, the point below Topkapı Palace
, and made a successful landing- winning him a position in the Ottoman
army. As told, the flight was accomplished as a part of celebrations performed for the birth of Ottoman Emperor Murat IV's daughter and was rewarded by the sultan; there are no known sultanate records of the event or reward. The flight was estimated to have lasted about 200 seconds and the maximum height reached around 300 meters.
On 15 March 1928 von Opel tested his first rocket-powered car, the RAK.1 and achieved a top speed of 75 km/h (47 mph) in it, proving the concept. Less than two months later, he reached a speed of 230 km/h (143 mph) in the RAK.2, driven by 24 solid-fuel rockets.
The Lippisch Ente a rocket-powered glider was produced on June 11, 1928, piloted by Fritz Stamer.
The aircraft exploded on its second test flight, before von Opel had a chance to pilot it himself, so he commissioned in a new aircraft, also called the RAK.1
from Julius Hatry
, and flew it at Frankfurt-am-Main on 30 September 1929. In the meantime, another mishap had claimed the RAK.3, a rocket-powered railway car powered by 30 solid-fuel rockets and which reached a speed of 254 km/h (157 mph).
In 1903, high school mathematics teacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
(1857–1935) published Исследование мировых пространств реактивными приборами (The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices), the first serious scientific work on space travel. The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation
—the principle that governs rocket propulsion—is named in his honor (although it had been discovered previously). He also advocated the use of liquid hydrogen and oxygen as fuel, calculating their maximum exhaust velocity. His work was essentially unknown outside the Soviet Union, but inside the country it inspired further research, experimentation and the formation of the Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel
in 1924.
In 1912, Robert Esnault-Pelterie
published a lecture on rocket theory and interplanetary travel. He independently derived Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation, did basic calculations about the energy required to make round trips to the Moon and planets, and he proposed the use of atomic power (i.e. radium) to power a jet drive.
Robert Goddard began a serious analysis of rockets in 1912, concluding that conventional solid-fuel rockets needed to be improved in three ways.
First, fuel should be burned in a small combustion chamber, instead of building the entire propellant container to withstand the high pressures. Second, rockets could be arranged in stages. And third, the exhaust speed (and thus the efficiency) could be greatly increased to beyond the speed of sound by using a De Laval nozzle
. He patented these concepts in 1914. He also independently developed the mathematics of rocket flight. He proved that a rocket would work in a vacuum, which many scientists did not believe at the time.
In 1920, Goddard published these ideas and experimental results in A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. The work included remarks about sending a solid-fuel rocket to the Moon, which attracted worldwide attention and was both praised and ridiculed. A New York Times editorial suggested that Professor Goddard: "does not know of the relation of action to reaction, and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd" but that "there are such things as intentional mistakes or oversights."
Goddard's historical impact was diminished by the fact that he worked much in secret, though he offered his services to the military but was mostly ignored. This secrecy was prompted in part by his bad experience with the press and in part by his belief that his ideas were being plagiarized by foreign scientists. He was also in bad health and did not want to waste time helping amateurs and arguing with other scientists who did not understand this new science.
In 1923, Hermann Oberth
(1894–1989) published Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ("The Rocket into Planetary Space"), a version of his doctoral thesis, after the University of Munich rejected it.
In 1924, Tsiolkovsky also wrote about multi-stage rockets, in 'Cosmic Rocket Trains'
Modern rockets were born when Goddard attached a supersonic (de Laval
) nozzle to a liquid-fueled rocket engine's combustion chamber. These nozzles turn the hot gas from the combustion chamber into a cooler, hypersonic
, highly directed jet of gas, more than doubling the thrust and raising the engine efficiency from 2% to 64%. Early rockets had been grossly inefficient because of the thermal energy that was wasted in the exhaust gases. In 1926, Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket in Auburn, Massachusetts
.
During the 1920s, a number of rocket research organizations appeared in the United States, Austria, Britain, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia. In the mid-1920s, German
scientists had begun experimenting with rockets which used liquid propellants capable of reaching relatively high altitudes and distances.
1927 the German car manufacturer Opel
began to research with rockets together with Mark Valier and the rocket builder Friedrich Wilhelm Sander. In 1928, Fritz von Opel drove with a rocket car, the Opel-RAK
.1 on the Opel raceway in Rüsselsheim, Germany. In 1929 von Opel started at the Frankfurt-Rebstock airport with the Opel-Sander RAK 1-airplane
. This was maybe the first flight with a manned rocket-aircraft.
In 1927 and also in Germany, a team of amateur rocket engineers had formed the Verein für Raumschiffahrt
(German Rocket Society, or VfR), and in 1931 launched a liquid propellant rocket (using oxygen
and gasoline).
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
goes back to the 13th century in China. From there developments occurred in Mongolia, India, Britain, America and Russia among many others.
In antiquity
The availability of black powder (gunpowderGunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
) to propel projectiles was a precursor to the development of the first solid rocket. Ninth century Chinese
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
Taoist alchemists
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
discovered black powder while searching for the Elixir of life
Elixir of life
The elixir of life, also known as the elixir of immortality and sometimes equated with the philosopher's stone, is a legendary potion, or drink, that grants the drinker eternal life and or eternal youth. Many practitioners of alchemy pursued it. The elixir of life was also said to be able to create...
; this accidental discovery led to experiments in the form of weapons such as bomb
Bomb
A bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...
s, cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
, incendiary fire arrow
Fire Arrow
Fire arrows are an early form of gun powder rocket which were attached to a stick. The Chinese are credited with the first use of fire arrows in a military application, they may have developed fire arrows from their use of fireworks.- Design :...
s and rocket-propelled fire arrows.
Exactly when the first flights of rockets occurred is contested. Some say that the first recorded use of a rocket in battle was by the Chinese in 1232 against the Mongol hordes. There were reports of fire arrows and 'iron pots' that could be heard for 5 leagues
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
(25 km, or 15 miles) when they exploded upon impact, causing devastation for a radius of 600 meters (2,000 feet), apparently due to shrapnel. The lowering of the iron pots may have been a way for a besieged army to blow up invaders. The fire arrows were either arrows with explosives attached, or arrows propelled by gunpowder, such as the Korean Hwacha
Hwacha
Hwacha or Hwach'a is the world's first multiple rocket launcher developed and used in Joseon Korea. It had the ability to fire up to 100 steel-tipped rockets, or 200 Singijeon flaming arrow projectiles from a range of 500 yards in multiple salvos...
.
Less controversially, one of the earliest devices recorded that used internal-combustion rocket propulsion was the 'ground-rat,' a type of firework, recorded in 1264 as having frightened the Empress-Mother Kung Sheng at a feast held in her honor by her son the Emperor Lizong.
Subsequently, one of the earliest texts to mention the use of rockets was the Huolongjing
Huolongjing
The Huolongjing is a 14th century military treatise that was compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Ji of the early Ming Dynasty in China...
, written by the Chinese artillery officer Jiao Yu
Jiao Yu
Jiao Yu was a Chinese military officer loyal to Zhu Yuanzhang , the founder of the Ming Dynasty . He was entrusted by Emperor Hongwu as a leading artillery officer for the rebel army that overthrew the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, and established the Ming Dynasty...
in the mid-14th century. This text also mentioned the use of the first known multistage rocket
Multistage rocket
A multistage rocket is a rocket that usestwo or more stages, each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A tandem or serial stage is mounted on top of another stage; a parallel stage is attached alongside another stage. The result is effectively two or more rockets stacked on top of or...
, the 'fire-dragon issuing from the water' (huo long chu shui), used mostly by the Chinese navy. Frank H. Winter proposed in The Proceedings of the Twentieth and Twenty-First History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics that southern China and the Laotian
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
community rocket festivals
Rocket Festival
A Rocket Festival is a merit-making ceremony traditionally practiced by Ethnic Lao people throughout much of northeast Thailand and Laos, by numerous villages and municipalities near the beginning of the rainy season...
might have been key in the subsequent spread of rocketry in the Orient.
The Greek author Philostratus
Philostratus
Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus , , called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He was born probably around 172, and is said by the Suda to have been living in the reign of emperor Philip the Arab . His death...
(lived c. 170-247 AD) wrote in Life of Apollonius of Tyana chapter xxxiii that some "wise men" (σοϕοί) lived in a fort in India between the Indus valley and the Ganges, and that when invading armies tried to take the wise men's fort, the wise men drove off the attackers by "πρηστῆρες [= "things which eject strongly") and βρονταί (= "thunders") which were hurled obliquely from above and fell upon their armour."; the Loeb Classical Library
Loeb Classical Library
The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books, today published by Harvard University Press, which presents important works of ancient Greek and Latin Literature in a way designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience, by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each...
edition translates πρηστῆρες as "rockets of fire".
Spread of rocket technology
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
, Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
and Ögedei Khan
Ögedei Khan
Ögedei Khan, born Ögedei was the third son of Genghis Khan and second Great Khan of the Mongol Empire by succeeding his father...
, when they conquered parts of Russia, Eastern, and Central Europe. The Mongolians had acquired the Chinese technology by conquest of the northern part of China and also by the subsequent employment of Chinese rocketry experts as mercenaries for the Mongol military. Reports of the Battle of Sejo in the year 1241 describe the use of rocket-like weapons by the Mongols against the Magyars. Rocket technology also spread to Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, with the 15th century wheeled hwacha
Hwacha
Hwacha or Hwach'a is the world's first multiple rocket launcher developed and used in Joseon Korea. It had the ability to fire up to 100 steel-tipped rockets, or 200 Singijeon flaming arrow projectiles from a range of 500 yards in multiple salvos...
that would launch singijeon
Singijeon
Singijeon or Shinkichon is a multi-launch rocket invented by Korean general Choe Mu-seon in 1377, during the Goryeo Dynasty under King U...
rockets. These first Korean rockets had an amazingly long range at the time, and were designed and built by Byun Eee-Joong. They were just like arrows but had small explosives attached to the back, and were fired in swarms.
In 1250, the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
Konungs skuggsjá
Konungs skuggsjá
Konungs skuggsjá is a Norwegian educational text from around 1250, an example of speculum literature that deals with politics and morality...
mentions, in its military chapter, the use of "coal and sulphur" as the best weapon for ship-to-ship combat
Naval warfare
Naval warfare is combat in and on seas, oceans, or any other major bodies of water such as large lakes and wide rivers.-History:Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Land warfare would seem, initially, to be irrelevant and entirely removed from warfare on the open ocean,...
.
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...
made one of the earliest mentions of gunpowder in Europe in 1267, in his work Epistola de secretis operibus artiis et naturae. His studies of gunpowder greatly improved the range of rockets. Bacon has been credited by some authors as the inventor of gunpowder (although the first to use it were Chinese), because around 1261 he developed the correct formula for gunpowder (75% of saltpeter
Potassium nitrate
Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the formula KNO3. It is an ionic salt of potassium ions K+ and nitrate ions NO3−.It occurs as a mineral niter and is a natural solid source of nitrogen. Its common names include saltpetre , from medieval Latin sal petræ: "stone salt" or possibly "Salt...
, 15% of carbon
Carbon
Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
and 10% of sulphur). Jean Froissart
Jean Froissart
Jean Froissart , often referred to in English as John Froissart, was one of the most important chroniclers of medieval France. For centuries, Froissart's Chronicles have been recognized as the chief expression of the chivalric revival of the 14th century Kingdom of England and France...
had the idea of launching rockets through tubes, so that they could make more accurate flights. Froissart's idea is a forerunner of the modern bazooka
Bazooka
Bazooka is the common name for a man-portable recoilless rocket antitank weapon, widely fielded by the U.S. Army. Also referred to as the "Stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was amongst the first-generation of rocket propelled anti-tank weapons used in infantry combat...
.
Additionally, the spread of rockets into Europe was also influenced by the Ottomans
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
at the siege of Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
in 1453, although it is very likely that the Ottomans themselves were influenced by the Mongol invasions of the previous few centuries. In their history of rockets published on the Internet, NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
says "Rockets appear in Arab literature in 1258 A.D., describing Mongol invaders' use of them on February 15 to capture the city of Baghdad. Quick to learn, the Arabs adopted the rocket into their own arms inventory and, during the Seventh Crusade
Seventh Crusade
The Seventh Crusade was a crusade led by Louis IX of France from 1248 to 1254. Approximately 800,000 bezants were paid in ransom for King Louis who, along with thousands of his troops, was captured and defeated by the Egyptian army led by the Ayyubid Sultan Turanshah supported by the Bahariyya...
, used them against the French Army of King Louis IX
Louis IX
Louis IX may refer to:* Louis IX of France .* Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria "the Rich" * Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt ....
in 1268."
Between 1270 and 1280, Hasan al-Rammah wrote al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), which included 107 gunpowder recipes, 22 of which are for rockets; he arrived to the same results of Bacon 13 years before, because if one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulphur and 15.94% carbon), it is almost identical with the reported ideal recipe. According to Ahmad Y Hassan
Ahmad Y Hassan
Ahmad Yusuf Al-Hassan is a historian of Arabic and Islamic science and technology, educated in Jerusalem, Cairo and London with a Ph.D. in Mechanical engineering from University College London. He was Dean of Engineering and later President of the University of Aleppo where he founded the...
, al-Rammah's recipes were more explosive than rockets used in China at the time. He also invented a torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
running on water with a rocket system filled with explosive materials. The earliest surviving documentary evidence for the use of the hand cannon, considered the oldest type of portable firearm
Small arms
Small arms is a term of art used by armed forces to denote infantry weapons an individual soldier may carry. The description is usually limited to revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, battle rifles, multiple barrel firearms, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light...
and a forerunner of the handgun
Handgun
A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....
, are from several Arabic manuscripts dated to the 14th century. Manuscript illustrations of the hand cannon resemble that of a rocket launcher. Al-Hassan argues that these manuscripts are based on earlier originals and that they report hand cannons being used by the Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...
s against the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut
Battle of Ain Jalut
The Battle of Ain Jalut took place on 3 September 1260 between Mamluks and the Mongols in eastern Galilee, in the Jezreel Valley, not far from Ein Harod....
in 1260.
The name Rocket comes from the Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
Rocchetta (i.e. little fuse), a name of a small firecracker created by the Italian artificer Muratori in 1379. Between 1529 and 1556 Conrad Haas
Conrad Haas
Conrad Haas was a military engineer of the Holy Roman Empire, who is believed to be the first person to describe a multistage rocket in writing.Haas was perhaps born in Dornbach...
wrote a book that described the concept of multi-stage rockets.
"Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima" ("Great Art of Artillery, the First Part", also known as "The Complete Art of Artillery"), first printed in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
in 1650, was translated to French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
in 1651, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
in 1676, English and Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
in 1729 and Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
in 1963. For over two centuries, this work of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
nobleman
Szlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...
Kazimierz Siemienowicz
Kazimierz Siemienowicz
Kazimierz Siemienowicz , was a Polish-Lithuanian general of artillery, gunsmith, military engineer, artillery specialist and pioneer of rocketry. Born in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, he served the armies of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a federation of Poland and the Grand Duchy, and in the...
was used in Europe as a basic artillery manual. The book provided the standard designs for creating rockets, fireballs, and other pyrotechnic devices. It contained a large chapter on caliber, construction, production and properties of rockets (for both military and civil purposes), including multi-stage
Multistage rocket
A multistage rocket is a rocket that usestwo or more stages, each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A tandem or serial stage is mounted on top of another stage; a parallel stage is attached alongside another stage. The result is effectively two or more rockets stacked on top of or...
rockets, batteries of rockets, and rockets with delta wing
Delta wing
The delta wing is a wing planform in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta .-Delta-shaped stabilizers:...
stabilizer
Stabilizer (aircraft)
In aviation, a stabilizer provides stability when the aircraft is flying straight, and the airfoil of the horizontal stabilizer balances the forces acting on the aircraft....
s (instead of the common guiding rods).
The Mysore Rocket
The first ironIron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
-cased and metal-cylinder
Cylinder (firearms)
In firearms terminology, the Cylinder refers to the cylindrical, rotating part of a revolver containing multiple cartridge chambers. The cylinder revolves around a central axis in the revolver to bring each individual chamber into alignment with the barrel for firing...
rocket artillery
Rocket artillery
Rocket artillery is a type of artillery equipped with rocket launchers instead of conventional guns or mortars.Types of rocket artillery pieces include multiple rocket launchers.-History:...
, made from iron tubes were developed by the Hindu weapons suppliers of Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan , also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the son of Hyder Ali, at that time an officer in the Mysorean army, and his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-Nissa...
, a Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, and his father Hyder Ali
Hyder Ali
Hyder Ali was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born Hyder Naik, he distinguished himself militarily, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's rulers...
, in the 1780s. Tipu Sultan championed the use of mass attacks with rocket brigades within the army, and he wrote a military manual on it, the Fathul Mujahidin
Fathul Mujahidin
Fathul Mujahidin is a military manual that was written by Tippu Sultan, a ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, considered a pioneer in the use of rocket artillery. He used rockets in battle with the British Army in the 1792 Siege of Srirangapatna, a battle at the end of the Third Anglo-Mysore War.Tipu...
. He successfully used these metal-cylinder rocket
Mysorean rockets
Mysorean rockets were the first iron-cased rockets that were successfully deployed for military use. Hyder Ali, the 18th century ruler of Mysore, and his son and successor, Tipu Sultan used them effectively against the British East India Company...
s against the larger forces of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
during the Anglo-Mysore Wars
Anglo-Mysore Wars
The Anglo-Mysore Wars were a series of wars fought in India over the last three decades of the 18th century between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company, represented chiefly by the Madras Presidency...
. The Mysore rockets of this period were much more advanced than what the British had seen, chiefly because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant; this enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missile (up to 2 km range). The effect of these weapons on the British during the Second
Second Anglo-Mysore War
The Second Anglo-Mysore War was a conflict in Mughal India between the Sultanate of Mysore and the British East India Company. At the time, Mysore was a key French ally in India, and the Franco-British conflict raging on account of the American Revolutionary War helped spark Anglo-Mysorean...
, Third and Fourth Mysore Wars in 1792 was sufficiently impressive to inspire the British to develop their own rocket designs. Several Mysore rockets were sent to England, who then took an active interest in the technology and developed it further during the 19th century.
According to Stephen Oliver Fought and John F. Guilmartin, Jr. in Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
(2008): "Hyder Ali
Hyder Ali
Hyder Ali was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born Hyder Naik, he distinguished himself militarily, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's rulers...
, prince of Mysore, developed war rockets with an important change: the use of metal cylinders to contain the combustion
Combustion
Combustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species. The release of heat can result in the production of light in the form of either glowing or a flame...
powder. Although the hammered soft iron he used was crude, the bursting strength of the container of black powder was much higher than the earlier paper construction. Thus a greater internal pressure was possible, with a resultant greater thrust of the propulsive jet. The rocket body was lashed with leather thongs to a long bamboo stick. Range was perhaps up to three-quarters of a mile (more than a kilometre). Although individually these rockets were not accurate, dispersion error became less important when large numbers were fired rapidly in mass attacks. They were particularly effective against cavalry and were hurled into the air, after lighting, or skimmed along the hard dry ground. Hyder Ali's son, Tippu Sultan, continued to develop and expand the use of rocket weapons, reportedly increasing the number of rocket troops from 1,200 to a corps of 5,000. In battles at Seringapatam in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British."
Although the technique was familiar to Europeans from the 17th century their use fell out of favor until the late 18th century, when Indian forces from Mysore led by Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan , also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the son of Hyder Ali, at that time an officer in the Mysorean army, and his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-Nissa...
invented iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
rockets for use as rocket artillery against British forces in battle, which led to the British development of the Congreve rocket
Congreve rocket
The Congreve Rocket was a British military weapon designed and developed by Sir William Congreve in 1804.The rocket was developed by the British Royal Arsenal following the experiences of the Second, Third and Fourth Mysore Wars. The wars fought between the British East India Company and the...
. Ironically, the technology of metal-cylinder missiles developed by Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan , also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the son of Hyder Ali, at that time an officer in the Mysorean army, and his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-Nissa...
contributed to the defeat of his ally Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
.
Accuracy of early rockets
William Congreve (inventor)
Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet was an English inventor and rocket artillery pioneer distinguished for his development and deployment of Congreve rockets.-Biography:...
, son of the Comptroller of the Royal Arsenal
Royal Arsenal
The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, originally known as the Woolwich Warren, carried out armaments manufacture, ammunition proofing and explosives research for the British armed forces. It was sited on the south bank of the River Thames in Woolwich in south-east London, England.-Early history:The Warren...
, Woolwich, London. Under the influence of the Mysorean rockets
Mysorean rockets
Mysorean rockets were the first iron-cased rockets that were successfully deployed for military use. Hyder Ali, the 18th century ruler of Mysore, and his son and successor, Tipu Sultan used them effectively against the British East India Company...
from India, he developed the Congreve rocket
Congreve rocket
The Congreve Rocket was a British military weapon designed and developed by Sir William Congreve in 1804.The rocket was developed by the British Royal Arsenal following the experiences of the Second, Third and Fourth Mysore Wars. The wars fought between the British East India Company and the...
. From there, the use of military rockets spread throughout Europe. At the Battle of Baltimore
Battle of Baltimore
The Battle of Baltimore was a combined sea/land battle fought between British and American forces in the War of 1812. It was one of the turning points of the war as American forces repulsed sea and land invasions of the busy port city of Baltimore, Maryland, and killed the commander of the invading...
in 1814, the rockets fired on Fort McHenry
Fort McHenry
Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland, is a star-shaped fort best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack by the British navy in Chesapeake Bay...
by the rocket vessel
Rocket vessel
A rocket vessel was a ship equipped with rockets as a weapon. The most famous ship of this type was HMS Erebus, which at the Battle of Baltimore in 1814 provided the "rockets' red glare" that was memorialized by Francis Scott Key in The Star-Spangled Banner.Rocket vessels were also used by the...
were the source of the rockets' red glare described by Francis Scott Key
Francis Scott Key
Francis Scott Key was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet, from Georgetown, who wrote the lyrics to the United States' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner".-Life:...
in The Star-Spangled Banner
The Star-Spangled Banner
"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States of America. The lyrics come from "Defence of Fort McHenry", a poem written in 1814 by the 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy ships...
. Rockets were also used in the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
.
Early rockets were very inaccurate. Without the use of spinning or any gimbal
Gimbal
A gimbal is a pivoted support that allows the rotation of an object about a single axis. A set of two gimbals, one mounted on the other with pivot axes orthogonal, may be used to allow an object mounted on the innermost gimbal to remain immobile regardless of the motion of its support...
ling of the thrust, they had a strong tendency to veer sharply off course. The early British Congreve rocket
Congreve rocket
The Congreve Rocket was a British military weapon designed and developed by Sir William Congreve in 1804.The rocket was developed by the British Royal Arsenal following the experiences of the Second, Third and Fourth Mysore Wars. The wars fought between the British East India Company and the...
s reduced this somewhat by attaching a long stick to the end of a rocket (similar to modern bottle rockets) to make it harder for the rocket to change course. The largest of the Congreve rockets was the 32-pound (14.5 kg) Carcass, which had a 15-foot (4.6 m) stick. Originally, sticks were mounted on the side, but this was later changed to mounting in the center of the rocket, reducing drag and enabling the rocket to be more accurately fired from a segment of pipe.
Congreve prepared a new propellant mixture, and developed a rocket motor with a strong iron tube with conical nose, weighing about 32 pounds (14.5 kilograms). The Royal Arsenal's first demonstration of solid fuel rockets was in 1805. The rockets were effectively used during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Congreve published three books on rocketry.
In 1815, Alexander Dmitrievich Zasyadko
Alexander Dmitrievich Zasyadko
Oleksandr Dmytrovych or Alexander Dmitrievich Zasyadko , was a Russian-Ukrainian gunner and specialist in rocketry, Lieutenant General ....
began his work on creating military gunpowder rockets. He constructed rocket-launching platforms, which allowed to fire in salvos (6 rockets at a time), and gun-laying devices. Zasyadko elaborated a tactic for military use of rocket weaponry. In 1820, Zasyadko was appointed head of the Petersburg Armory, Okhtensky Powder Factory, pyrotechnic laboratory and the first Highest Artillery School in Russia. He organized rocket production in a special rocket workshop and created the first rocket sub-unit in the Russian army.
The accuracy problem was mostly solved in 1844 when William Hale
William Hale (British inventor)
William Hale , was a British inventor and rocket pioneer.- Biography :Hale was born in Colchester, England in 1797. He was self-taught although his grandfather, the educator William Cole, is believed to have tutored him...
modified the rocket design so that thrust was slightly vectored
Thrust vectoring
Thrust vectoring, also thrust vector control or TVC, is the ability of an aircraft, rocket or other vehicle to manipulate the direction of the thrust from its engine or motor in order to control the attitude or angular velocity of the vehicle....
, causing the rocket to spin along its axis of travel like a bullet. The Hale rocket removed the need for a rocket stick, travelled further due to reduced air resistance, and was far more accurate.
Early manned rocketry
According to legend, a manned rocket sledRocket sled
A rocket sled is a test platform that slides along a set of rails, propelled by rockets.As its name implies, a rocket sled does not use wheels. Instead, it has sliding pads, called "slippers", which are curved around the head of the rails to prevent the sled from flying off the track...
with 47 gunpowder-filled rockets was attempted in China by Wan Hu
Wan Hu
According to legend, Wàn Hǔ was a minor Chinese official of the Ming dynasty who attempted to become the world's first recorded "astronaut". The crater Wan-Hoo on the far side of the Moon is named after him.-The Legend of Wan Hu:...
in the 16th Century. The alleged flight is said to have been interrupted by an explosion at the start, and the pilot did not seem to have survived (he was never found). There are no known Chinese sources for this event, and the earliest known account is an unsourced reference in a book by an American, Herbert S. Zim in 1945.
In Ottoman Turkey in 1633, according to one account, Lagari Hasan Çelebi
Lagari Hasan Çelebi
Lagari Hasan Çelebi was a legendary Ottoman aviator who, according to an account written by Evliya Çelebi, made a successful manned rocket flight.-Account:...
launched in a 7 winged rocket using 50 okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
from Sarayburnu
Sarayburnu
Sarayburnu is a promontory separating the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara in Istanbul, Turkey. The area is where the renowned Topkapı Palace and Gülhane Park stand...
, the point below Topkapı Palace
Topkapi Palace
The Topkapı Palace is a large palace in Istanbul, Turkey, that was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years of their 624-year reign....
, and made a successful landing- winning him a position in the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
army. As told, the flight was accomplished as a part of celebrations performed for the birth of Ottoman Emperor Murat IV's daughter and was rewarded by the sultan; there are no known sultanate records of the event or reward. The flight was estimated to have lasted about 200 seconds and the maximum height reached around 300 meters.
On 15 March 1928 von Opel tested his first rocket-powered car, the RAK.1 and achieved a top speed of 75 km/h (47 mph) in it, proving the concept. Less than two months later, he reached a speed of 230 km/h (143 mph) in the RAK.2, driven by 24 solid-fuel rockets.
The Lippisch Ente a rocket-powered glider was produced on June 11, 1928, piloted by Fritz Stamer.
The aircraft exploded on its second test flight, before von Opel had a chance to pilot it himself, so he commissioned in a new aircraft, also called the RAK.1
Opel RAK.1
The Opel RAK.1 was the world's first purpose-built rocket-powered aircraft. It was designed and built by Julius Hatry under commission from Fritz von Opel who flew it on September 30, 1929 in front of a large crowd at Rebstock airport near Frankfurt-am-Main.During the late 1920s, von Opel had...
from Julius Hatry
Julius Hatry
Julius Hatry was a German aircraft designer and builder. He is remembered for his contributions to sailplane development in the early twentieth century and for building the world's first purpose-built rocket plane, the Opel RAK.1.Hatry was born in Mannheim and developed an early interest in...
, and flew it at Frankfurt-am-Main on 30 September 1929. In the meantime, another mishap had claimed the RAK.3, a rocket-powered railway car powered by 30 solid-fuel rockets and which reached a speed of 254 km/h (157 mph).
Theories of interplanetary rocketry
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was an Imperial Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory. Along with his followers the German Hermann Oberth and the American Robert H. Goddard, he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics...
(1857–1935) published Исследование мировых пространств реактивными приборами (The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices), the first serious scientific work on space travel. The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation
Tsiolkovsky rocket equation
The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, or ideal rocket equation is an equation that is useful for considering vehicles that follow the basic principle of a rocket: where a device that can apply acceleration to itself by expelling part of its mass with high speed and moving due to the conservation of...
—the principle that governs rocket propulsion—is named in his honor (although it had been discovered previously). He also advocated the use of liquid hydrogen and oxygen as fuel, calculating their maximum exhaust velocity. His work was essentially unknown outside the Soviet Union, but inside the country it inspired further research, experimentation and the formation of the Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel
Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel
The Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel was founded in Moscow in May 1924. It was a spin off of a military science society at the Zhukovsky Airforce Academy, and was chaired by Grigory Kramarov. Its 200 charter members included important Soviet space-exploration and rocketry experts such...
in 1924.
In 1912, Robert Esnault-Pelterie
Robert Esnault-Pelterie
Robert Albert Charles Esnault-Pelterie was a pioneering French aircraft designer and spaceflight theorist. He was born in Paris, the son of a textile industrialist...
published a lecture on rocket theory and interplanetary travel. He independently derived Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation, did basic calculations about the energy required to make round trips to the Moon and planets, and he proposed the use of atomic power (i.e. radium) to power a jet drive.
First, fuel should be burned in a small combustion chamber, instead of building the entire propellant container to withstand the high pressures. Second, rockets could be arranged in stages. And third, the exhaust speed (and thus the efficiency) could be greatly increased to beyond the speed of sound by using a De Laval nozzle
De Laval nozzle
A de Laval nozzle is a tube that is pinched in the middle, making a carefully balanced, asymmetric hourglass-shape...
. He patented these concepts in 1914. He also independently developed the mathematics of rocket flight. He proved that a rocket would work in a vacuum, which many scientists did not believe at the time.
In 1920, Goddard published these ideas and experimental results in A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. The work included remarks about sending a solid-fuel rocket to the Moon, which attracted worldwide attention and was both praised and ridiculed. A New York Times editorial suggested that Professor Goddard: "does not know of the relation of action to reaction, and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd" but that "there are such things as intentional mistakes or oversights."
Goddard's historical impact was diminished by the fact that he worked much in secret, though he offered his services to the military but was mostly ignored. This secrecy was prompted in part by his bad experience with the press and in part by his belief that his ideas were being plagiarized by foreign scientists. He was also in bad health and did not want to waste time helping amateurs and arguing with other scientists who did not understand this new science.
In 1923, Hermann Oberth
Hermann Oberth
Hermann Julius Oberth was an Austro-Hungarian-born German physicist and engineer. He is considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics.- Early life :...
(1894–1989) published Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ("The Rocket into Planetary Space"), a version of his doctoral thesis, after the University of Munich rejected it.
In 1924, Tsiolkovsky also wrote about multi-stage rockets, in 'Cosmic Rocket Trains'
Pre–World War II
De Laval nozzle
A de Laval nozzle is a tube that is pinched in the middle, making a carefully balanced, asymmetric hourglass-shape...
) nozzle to a liquid-fueled rocket engine's combustion chamber. These nozzles turn the hot gas from the combustion chamber into a cooler, hypersonic
Hypersonic
In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that is highly supersonic. Since the 1970s, the term has generally been assumed to refer to speeds of Mach 5 and above...
, highly directed jet of gas, more than doubling the thrust and raising the engine efficiency from 2% to 64%. Early rockets had been grossly inefficient because of the thermal energy that was wasted in the exhaust gases. In 1926, Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket in Auburn, Massachusetts
Auburn, Massachusetts
Auburn is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 16,188 at the 2010 census.- History :Auburn was first settled in 1789 and was officially incorporated in 1808 as the town of Ward, in honor of American Revolution General Artemas Ward...
.
During the 1920s, a number of rocket research organizations appeared in the United States, Austria, Britain, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia. In the mid-1920s, German
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
scientists had begun experimenting with rockets which used liquid propellants capable of reaching relatively high altitudes and distances.
1927 the German car manufacturer Opel
Opel
Adam Opel AG, generally shortened to Opel, is a German automobile company founded by Adam Opel in 1862. Opel has been building automobiles since 1899, and became an Aktiengesellschaft in 1929...
began to research with rockets together with Mark Valier and the rocket builder Friedrich Wilhelm Sander. In 1928, Fritz von Opel drove with a rocket car, the Opel-RAK
Opel-RAK
Opel-RAK were a series of rocket vehicles produced by Fritz von Opel, of the Opel car company, in association with others, including Max Valier and Friedrich Wilhelm Sander largely as publicity stunts....
.1 on the Opel raceway in Rüsselsheim, Germany. In 1929 von Opel started at the Frankfurt-Rebstock airport with the Opel-Sander RAK 1-airplane
Opel RAK.1
The Opel RAK.1 was the world's first purpose-built rocket-powered aircraft. It was designed and built by Julius Hatry under commission from Fritz von Opel who flew it on September 30, 1929 in front of a large crowd at Rebstock airport near Frankfurt-am-Main.During the late 1920s, von Opel had...
. This was maybe the first flight with a manned rocket-aircraft.
In 1927 and also in Germany, a team of amateur rocket engineers had formed the Verein für Raumschiffahrt
Verein für Raumschiffahrt
The Verein für Raumschiffahrt was a German amateur rocket association prior to World War II that included members outside of Germany...
(German Rocket Society, or VfR), and in 1931 launched a liquid propellant rocket (using oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
and gasoline).