When was rocket propulsion invented

About three hundred years after the pigeon, another Greek, Hero of Alexandria, invented a similar rocket-like device called an aeolipile. It, too, used steam as a propulsive gas. Hero mounted a sphere on top of a water kettle.

A fire below the kettle turned the water into steam, and the gas traveled through pipes to the sphere. Two L-shaped tubes on opposite sides of the sphere allowed the gas to escape, and in doing so gave a thrust to the sphere that caused it to rotate. Just when the first true rockets appeared is unclear. Stories of early rocket like devices appear sporadically through the historical records of various cultures.

Perhaps the first true rockets were accidents. In the first century A. To create explosions during religous festivals, they filled bamboo tubes with a mixture and tossed them into fires.

Perhaps some of those tubes failed to explode and instead skittered out of the fires, propelled by the gases and sparks produced by the burning gunpowder.

The Chinese began experimenting with the gunpowder-filled tubes. At some point, they attached bamboo tubes to arrows and launched them with bows. Soon they discovered that these gunpowder tubes could launch themselves just by the power produced from the escaping gas.

The true rocket was born. The date reporting the first use of true rockets was in At this time, the Chinese and the Mongols were at war with each other. During the battle of Kai-Keng, the Chinese repelled the Mongol invaders by a barrage of "arrows of flying fire.

A tube, capped at one end, contained gunpowder. The other end was left open and the tube was attached to a long stick. When the powder was ignited, the rapid burning of the powder produced fire, smoke, and gas that escaped out the open end and produced a thrust.

The stick acted as a simple guidance system that kept the rocket headed in one general direction as it flew through the air. It is not clear how effective these arrows of flying fire were as weapons of destruction, but their psychological effects on the Mongols must have been formidable.

Following the battle of Kai-Keng, the Mongols produced rockets of their own and may have been responsible for the spread of rockets to Europe. All through the 13th to the 15th centuries there were reports of many rocket experiments. In England, a monk named Roger Bacon worked on improved forms of gunpowder that greatly increased the range of rockets. In France, Jean Froissart found that more accurate flights could be achieved by launching rockets through tubes. Froissart's idea was the forerunner of the modern bazooka.

Joanes de Fontana of Italy designed a surface-running rocket-powered torpedo for setting enemy ships on fire. By the 16th century rockets fell into a time of disuse as weapons of war, though they were still used for fireworks displays, and a German fireworks maker, Johann Schmidlap, invented the "step rocket," a multi-staged vehicle for lifting fireworks to higher altitudes.

A large sky rocket first stage carried a smaller sky rocket second stage. When the large rocket burned out, the smaller one continued to a higher altitude before showering the sky with glowing cinders. Schmidlap's idea is basic to all rockets today that go into outer space. Nearly all uses of rockets up to this time were for warfare or fireworks, but there is an interesting old Chinese legend that reported the use of rockets as a means of transportation. With the help of many assistants, a lesser-known Chinese official named Wan-Hu assembled a rocket- powered flying chair.

Attached to the chair were two large kites, and fixed to the kites were forty- seven fire-arrow rockets. On the day of the flight, Wan-Hu sat himself on the chair and gave the command to light the rockets. Forty-seven rocket assistants, each armed with torches, rushed forward to light the fuses. In a moment, there was a tremendous roar accompanied by billowing clouds of smoke. When the smoke cleared, Wan-Hu and his flying chair were gone. No one knows for sure what happened to Wan-Hu, but it is probable that if the event really did take place, Wan-Hu and his chair were blown to pieces.

Fire-arrows were as apt to explode as to fly. Some of these rockets were so powerful that their escaping exhaust flames bored deep holes in the ground even before lift-off.

During the end of the 18th century and early into the 19th, rockets experienced a brief revival as a weapon of war. Before launch, however, it was necessary to pressurize the system from an oxygen cylinder located about 30 feet from the rocket.

Heavy rubber tubing fed the oxygen into the rocket's pressure line. As the rocket began to rise, this hose had to be pulled free. The resulting opening was rigged with a flap check value to slam shut and prevent loss of pressure. The combustion chamber was equipped with an igniter system containing match heads and black gunpowder to provide the starting fire for ignition of the lox and gasoline when they were forced into the combustion chamber. Only a few steps were necessary in the countdown and launch.

First, an assistant using a blowtorch on a long pole reached up and heated the igniter casing until the enclosed match heads caught fire and ignited the black powder. He then closed the pressure relief vent on the lox tank and quickly lighted the alcohol soaked cotton in the burner.

Next, Goddard piped oxygen from the cylinder to the propellant tanks at 90 pounds per square inch pressure. This forced gasoline and lox to the combustion chamber, where the igniter was still burning.

With a loud roar, the rocket motor fired. When the rocket motor's thrust exceeded the weight, it rose a few inches from the ground, tethered only by the hose.

With a long rope, Goddard pulled a hinged rod that yanked the hose away, and the rocket was free to fly. The swing of this rod also unseated a spring loaded valve, allowing lox to drip into the heated chamber surrounding the lox tank. The lox flashed into vapor, and the resulting gas pressure fed the liquids to the combustion chamber. Thus, after 17 years of theoretical and experimental work, Goddard finally achieved flight of a liquid fueled rocket on March 16, , at his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts.

Goddard recorded the occasion in his diary. It had reached an estimated speed of 60 miles per hour and the height of 41 feet. Although rudimentary and far from a practical design, Goddard's basic concept was validated, and the event is considered comparable in its significance to the Wright Brothers' achievement of manned flight at Kitty Hawk. Using these funds, Goddard set up a testing ground in Roswell , New Mexico , which operated from until During his tenure there, he made 31 successful flights, including one of a rocket that reached 1.

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