Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Werner Heisenberg may have forever changed the face of twentieth century physics. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Mao Tse-tung, and Josef Stalin may have established the dominant political dynasties of the twentieth century. However, Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, German Romanian Hermann Oberth, and American Robert Goddard are the three men whose work shaped the technology and geopolitical landscape of Earth in the 20th century and beyond. The Chinese were the first to launch rockets using gunpowder over a millenia ago and Marco Polo along with other European traders eventually brought that knowledge of gunpowder to Europe where such technology was used for warfare, but it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century, did these three physicists independently and separately derive the theoretical and mathematical foundation of rocketry and astronautics. This diary is the first of a three part series focusing on the lives of these three men.
Tsiolkovsky, Oberth, and Goddard are the founding fathers of the modern space industry and virtually all space technology developments and spacecrafts were first proposed by them including the space telescopes, the solar power stations, missile defense systems, and even the space elevators. Their theoretical work is evident every time a Space shuttle , a Trident missile, or a Proton with ISS cargo hauler launches into space from the surface of the Earth. ICBMs tipped with nuclear warheads have changed the international rules of military conflict and policies. Communication satellites have revolutionized the speed at which information can be tranmitted around the globe. Humans have been able to leave the surface of the Earth and set foot on another world. Climate monitoring satellites and photos of the Earth have enormously strengthen the environmental movement and given them political clout. All of these technological events were theorized by these three men. Yet, the story how each of these men came to work on rockets could not be more divergent and in some ways very similar. Of the three, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was probably the brightest and most underappreciated. In fact, in many ways he was more intelligent than Albert Einstein.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
In 1903, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky became the first physicist to publish a mathematical treatise, entitled The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices, on the use of rockets to launch spacecraft beyond Earth's atmosphere. However, once the book was published, the work gained very little recognition or interest outside of Russia until the publication of Hermann Oberth's By Rocket into Planetary Space in 1923.
Born in Izhevskoye, Russia in 1857 to an exiled Polish father and a well educated Russian mother, Tsiolkovsky contracted scarlet fever at the age of 9 that left him hearing impaired. Consequently, he was barred from attending Russian schools. He grew up shy and lonely at home where he spent much of his childhood studying books.
At age 16, he left home to attend lectures at a university in Moscow where he spent much of his time in the libraries reading and studying books. At one of these libraries, he met Nikolai Fyodorov (more popularly spelled Federov), a futurist, who helped draw Tsiolkovsky's interests to the idea of space travel. Thus, Tsiolkovsky became interested in mathematics and physics, subjects which he largely self-taught.
In 1876, Tsiolkovsky's father upon finding his son near starvation and overworked ordered Konstantin back home to help him find a job where he could become self-sufficient. Tsiolkovsky studied to become a math teacher and passed the teaching exams, receiving his certificate in 1879. He was abled to obtain a teaching position in Borovsk, a town 60 miles from Moscow in a mostly isolated, rural area. While teaching math there, he began doing research on aerodynamics and developed an accurate theory of inert gases. Unaware that the theory had already been published 25 years earlier, he submitted a paper to the Russian Physico-Chemical Society in St. Petersburg. Dmitri Mendeleev, the creater of the Periodic Table of Elements, responded kindly that the theory had already been established, but encouraged Tsiolkovsky to continue his own research. Mendeleev and other scientists in the Society were so impressed by Tsiolkovsky's abilities to independently arrive at scientific theory that they invited him to join.
In 1892, Tsiolkovsky was promoted to another math teaching position in Kaluga, Russia where he was to spend the remainder of his life with his wife and seven children. In 1896, he began his aeronautics and astronautics research that eventually led to his famous work. He built a wind tunnel with his own funds, the first of its kind in Russia, to work out the equations of flight just as the Wright Brothers were doing in America. He published several papers on the effects of air friction on surface areas and wind speed over a streamlined body, receiving a cash grant from the Physico-Chemical Society which enabled him to build an even bigger wind tunnel. Tsiolkovsky began turning more of his attention to astronautics and was able to derive the necessary escape velocity a vehicle would need to achieve Earth's orbit, 8 km/s. He also proposed multistage rockets in order to eliminate mass and using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as rocket fuels.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky did not gain much recognition for his work in aeronautics and astronautics until 1919 when he was inducted into the Academy of Sciences. In 1921, he received a permanent life pension from the USSR People's Commissar for his work in aeronautics. However, it was not until 1924, once Oberth published his famous treatise and a reference to Robert Goddards own paper was included inducing Tsiolkovsky to republish his work and have it translated, that he gained international recognition for the development of theoretical astronautics. He was then named first professor of Soviet Military Aerial Academy. By the time of his death in 1935, Tsiolkovsky wrote over 500 papers on aeronautics and astronautics and had published a number science fiction stories and books promoting space travel. His work influenced the second generation of Russian rocketeers like Valentin Glushko and Sergei Korolev. Today in Russia, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is often called the Father of Space Travel which is quite an honor for a hearing impaired person who received no formal education.
Note: I have revised the title of my series in order to make the subject more apparent.