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History of Space Travel The Theory To design and build a spacecraft, you need to be able to figure out how big to make it, how heavy it can be, how fast it will have to go, how much fuel it needs and so forth. For that, you need a theory of how objects move in space and how to make the calculations. Almost all theory of space flight was worked out by three brilliant men over a period of nearly three centuries - from 1600 to 1900.
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Johannes Kepler
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Isaac Newton
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Konstantin
Tsiolkovsky A Russian school teacher who, without ever launching a single rocket himself, was the first to figure out all the basic equations for rocketry - in 1903! From his very broad and extensive reading, including Jules Verne’s "From the Earth to the Moon", he concluded that space travel was a possibility, that it was in fact man’s destiny, and that rockets would be the way to pull it off. He anticipated and solved many of the problems that were going to come up for rocket powered flight and drew up several rocket designs. He determined that liquid fuel rockets would be needed to get to space, and that the rockets would need to be built in stages (he called them "rocket trains"). He concluded that oxygen and hydrogen would be the most powerful fuels to use. He had predicted how, 65 years later, the Saturn V rocket would operate for the first landing of men on the moon. |
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The
Three Great Rocketry Pioneers Robert Goddard The Builder of
the First Rockets An American who is now
called "the father of modern rocketry". By contrast to Tsiolkovsky,
Goddard was the man who designed, built, and flew the rockets. He was a
university professor who also developed the theory of rocketry and
although he didn't know about Tsiolkovsky's work, reached the same
conclusions as Tsiolkovsky did. Goddard proved the theory was true. He was also heavily
influenced by the science fiction of Jules Verne, and he worked hard to
develop rockets because he wanted to see them take us into space. When he first published his
superbly written study, proposing that rockets could possibly be used to
travel to the moon, people thought he was a nut. In fact, the criticism
was so harsh, Goddard maintained a low profile and said little about his
work after that. In 1926 he launched the
world’s first liquid fueled rocket. In the course of his experiments in
Massachusetts and Roswell, New Mexico, he virtually developed the entirety
of rocket technology. He invented everything required for modern rocketry and earned over 200 patents. By himself he developed the same components and designs that took the Germans hundreds of scientists and engineers and millions of dollars to develop independently at Peenemunde during World War II |
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Hermann Oberth Managed to
Convince the World that the Rocket was Something to Take Seriously as a
Space Vehicle Yet another one who, after
reading Jules Verne’s "From Earth to the Moon" as a young boy
(age 11 in this case), became determined to find a way to travel space. He
independently determined the same rocketry principles as Tsiolkovsky and
Goddard. The difference with Oberth
is that in 1929 he published "The Rocket Into Interplanetary
Space", a highly influential book which was internationally acclaimed
and persuaded the world that the rocket was something to take seriously as
a space vehicle. Oberth was also Wernher Von
Braun’s teacher, bringing him into the German rocket program. Of the three great rocketry pioneers, Oberth was the only one who lived to see men travel through space and land on the moon. |
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Wernher Von
Braun The Last of
the Three Rocketry Pioneers and Led the Development that Took Man to Space Together with Oberth and an
enormous team of scientists and engineers at Peenemunde, he developed and
launched the German V2 rocket, the first rocket capable of reaching space. At the end of World War II,
Von Braun led the top scientists and engineers out of Germany to the
Americans (he didn't want to be captured by the Russians). He led the US development of
military and space exploration rockets. Von Braun was crucial in the
effort to convince the US government to pursue a landing of men on the
moon, and guided US efforts to success. He led the development of the Saturn rockets, the only series of rockets ever developed to have worked perfectly on every launch (that is, never blew up on the pad). If he hadn’t been so successful, we may never have made it to the moon. |
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The
Pioneers of Space Travel Yuri Gagarin The First Man
in Space… Yuri Gagarin was born near
Moscow, Russia on March 9, 1934. He died on March 27, 1968. Yuri joined
the Soviet Air Force in 1955. By 1959, he was training to become a
cosmonaut. On April 12, 1961 Yuri
Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth! The name of his spacecraft
was Vostok 1. Vostok 1 had two sections. One section was for Yuri. The second
section was for supplies needed for Gagarin to live such as oxygen and
water. Vostok
1 circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour. The flight
lasted 108 minutes. Vostok's
reentry was controlled by a computer. Yuri Gagarin did not land inside of Vostok
1. He ejected from the spacecraft and landed by parachute. Yuri Gagarin was killed in a plane crash before he could travel in space a second time. |
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Neil Alden
Armstrong The First Man
on the Moon Neil Alden Armstrong was
born on August 5, 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio. He holds a degree in
aeronautical engineering from Purdue University and a master’s degree in
aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California. From
1949 to 1952, Armstrong was a naval aviator. Upon leaving military
service, he became a test pilot. While serving as a test pilot, he was
chosen to be a member of the astronaut corps. Though he was on the backup
crew of many previous flights, his first space flight occurred in 1966
aboard Gemini 8. During this
flight, he and fellow astronaut David Scott successfully performed the
first docking in space between two vehicles. In July of 1969, Neil
Armstrong was the commander of Apollo
11, America's first attempt to land a manned vehicle on the Moon. On
July 20, 1969 Commander Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin Aldrin
successfully touched down on the lunar surface. As Armstrong became the
first person to touch the Moon's surface, he spoke the unforgettable
phrase, "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for
mankind". He and Aldrin explored the Moon's surface for 2.5 hours.
Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of
his accomplishments and his contributions to the space program. Neil Armstrong left NASA in 1971 to join the faculty of the University of Cincinnati. He remained there as a professor of aerospace engineering until 1979. Armstrong served on the National Commission on space from 1985 to 1986. In 1986, he was appointed as vice chairman of the presidential commission that investigated the Challenger explosion. Neil Armstrong is married and has two children. He currently lives quietly in Ohio and works with AIL, Inc.
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