-
428 BCE
First Flight
Archytas, a Greek philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer constructed and flown a small bird-shaped device that was propelled by a jet of steam or compressed air. The device was suspended by a wire or mounted at the end of a bar that revolved around some sort of pivot. This was the first reported device to use rocket propulsion. -
Jan 1, 1232
Chinese Fireworks
These fireworks were a simple form of a solid-propellant rocket. A tube contained gunpowder. The other end was left open and the tube was attached to a long stick. When the powder was ignited, the burning of the powder produced fire, smoke, and gas that escaped out the open end and produced a thrust. -
Polish Rockets
Kazimierz Siemienowicz, a Polish-Lithuanian commander in the Polish Royal Artillery, wrote a manuscript on rockets cerca 1630. He published a design for multistage rockets that was to become a fundamental rocket technology for rockets heading for outer space. Siemienowicz also proposed batteries for military rocket launching and delta-wing stabilizers to replace the guiding rods currently in use with military rockets. -
Galileo's Intertia
Galileo was a prominent proponent of mass and gravity. He proved that an object in motion does not need the continuous application of force to keep moving. He coined the term that resists changes in velocity: “inertia.” Inertia is one of the fundamental properties that Isaac Newton would later incorporate into his laws of motion which would also be used in modern day rocket science. -
First Modern Rocket
Konstantin Tsiolkovski was an astronautics
pioneer. He is considered the Father of Cosmonautics and human spaceflight. Tsiolkovski advocated liquid propellant rocket engines, orbital space stations, solar energy, and colonization of the Solar System. His rocket equation, based on Newton’s second law of motion, relates rocket engine exhaust velocity to the change in velocity of the vehicle itself. -
Father of Modern Rockets
American college professor and scientist Robert Goddard built
and flew the world’s first liquid propellant in 1926. Though his rocket only climbed 12.5 meters, it set the stage for modern rocekts technology. He continued his experiments and developed a gyroscope system to control his rockets in flight. He is referred to as the “father of modern rocketry.” -
First Missiles- Germany
In the late 1930s, the Verein fur Raumschiffart Society for
Space Travel (Germany) evolved into the team that built and flew the the advanced V2 rocket. The V2 rocket, powered by alcohol and liquid oxygen. The V2 had a range of 200 miles and a maximum altitude of 55 miles, the V2 could deliver a 1-ton explosive warhead during WWII. Thousands of V2s were built, but they were too late to be used during the war. -
Explorer 1
The United States launched the Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958. The satellite was launched on top of the Juno 1, a modified Jupiter-C booster rocket. Explorer 1 was much smaller than the Russian Sputniks: only 30.66 pounds. The Explorer 1 made the first important discovery about the space environment. -
Moon Landing
In 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. It was the first time in history that humans had touched another celestial body. The Apollo 11 mission was the first of six Moon landings extending to the end of 1972. The astronauts’ spacecraft, the lunar module, consisted of a descent and an ascent stage. The descent stage had four legs and a powerful rocket engine to slow the craft for landing on the Moon. -
Dream Chaser
On April 29, 2013, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo sub-orbital vehicle was propelled on its first ever powered flight bySierra Nevada Corporation's Hybrid Rocket Motor. SNC manufactures the main oxidizer valve and the hybrid rocket motor, plus the nitrous oxide dump and pressurization system control valves. Dream Chaser is expected to be a safe, reliable, and cost effective way of transporting crew to low-Earth orbit.
