we-are-star-stuff:Who Invented the Rocketship?The entire idea of traveling into space to other world
we-are-star-stuff:Who Invented the Rocketship?The entire idea of traveling into space to other worlds can be given a specific date: January 7, 1610.It was on that evening Galileo Galilei first observed the satellites of Jupiter and realized that the planets were worlds just like our own. Until then, the heavens were thought to be no great distance from the earth, and the sun and the moon were thought to be the only material bodies with which we shared the universe. Even at that, the nature of the moon, for example, was an object of much debate: was it in fact a body like the earth, or was it something more ethereal? The stars, while some were brighter than others, were nevertheless thought to be at more or less all the same distance from the earth, though just what that distance might be was a matter for discussion.The planets were merely a special class of bright stars that wandered among the other “fixed” stars; at the time, the word “planet” itself simply meant nothing more than “wanderer.” Otherwise there was nothing particularly unusual about them. It was unthinkable to the ancients that those twinkling lights might be places that could be traveled to and only the moon served as a destination in a rare handful of fantasies.Galileo’s revelation changed all of that forever. The moon was a world as imperfect as our own, with mountains, valleys, plains and hundreds of odd, circular ring mountains and craters. The planets were obviously worlds like the moon and the earth. And if they were indeed worlds like our own, did not that imply other similarities? Would they not have landscapes and living inhabitants? Surely there would be animal life and perhaps civilizations? Would there be great cities and mighty kingdoms up there in the heavens? And if there were, might there not also be great treasures? These questions were far from rhetorical. When human beings looked skyward they no longer saw abstract points of light. They saw the infinite possibilities of new worlds.At the time of Galileo’s discovery of new worlds in the sky, there were new worlds being discovered right here on earth. Scarcely more than a century earlier the continents of North and South America had been ‘discovered’ quite by accident, lying unsuspected and unknown on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean. The new worlds of the Americas, which could not even be seen and which existed for the vast majority of Europeans only in the form of traveler’s tales, nevertheless could be visited by anyone possessing the funds or courage. But now here were whole new earths which could be seen by anyone and even mapped; whole new planets with unimaginable continents… yet there was no way to touch them.It is little wonder that Galileo’s discoveries could not be suppressed. Their publication was quickly followed by a flood of space travel stories:there were poems, songs, stage plays and sermons, all inspired by the possibility of traveling to the new worlds in the sky. Bishop Wilkins had no personal doubts that these voyages would eventually be made. He wrote in his Discovery of a New World (1638), “You will say there can be no sailing thither [to the moon]… We have not now any Drake, or Columbus, to undertake this voyage, or any Daedalus to invent a conveyance through the air. I answer, though we have not, yet why may not succeeding times raise up some spirits as eminent for new attempts, and strange inventions, as any that were before them?… I do seriously, and upon good grounds affirm it possible to make a flying-chariot…”A great many writers did their best to imagine what such a flying chariot might be like, but they were handicapped by the limitations of the technologies available at the time. The writers of space travel stories before the end of the 1700s were merely groping in the dark: there simply was no method by which a human being could leave the surface of the earth. In all the history of mankind no one had ever left the earth any farther than they could jump.The invention of the lighter-than-air manned balloon in 1783 was a major revolution, and revelation, in mankind’s perception of the exploration of the universe because it was not accomplished by imaginary means but by the use of a man-made machine, a device of science. This is the altered perception that is most important to realize: that by means of a man-made instrumentality, employing well-understood physical principles, it was possible to leave the earth. Therefore the problem of traveling to the other worlds that shared the universe with the earth ought also be surmountable by means of science and mechanics.Yet, if traveling into space was simply a matter of applying the right technology, what might that technology be? Balloons? Anti-gravity? Giant cannons? These and other ideas were all suggested. But it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that anyone with an engineering or scientific background seriously proposed the use of rockets to propel a spacecraft. But what about the science fiction writers? Everyone knows they’re always ahead of the game. Did anyone writing a science fiction story come up with the idea of using a rocket-powered spaceship before engineers and scientists did?Well, of course! This feat is usually credited to Cyrano de Bergerac. In his satirical fantasy, Histoire Comique: Contenant les Etats et Empire de la Lune (1657, but written 10 years earlier), de Bergerac described the flight of a manned rocket. His hero had already tried several methods of flying to the moon, all unsuccessful. One of them employed a kind of box with wings powered by giant springs. This is launched from a cliff and immediately crashes. While de Bergerac is consoling himself in a local bar, some jokers fasten skyrockets to the box. On his next attempt, the rockets are lit and he is launched into the sky.Although de Bergerac is often credited with the first suggestion for the use of rockets in space travel, he truly only gets half points for doing this since he only includes them in his list of possible means of locomotion because he believes they sounded just as silly as all the other methods he described.On the other hand, Jules Verne took rockets seriously, using them in his classic 1865 novel, From the Earth to the Moon and its 1870 sequel, Around the Moon. Although he employed an enormous cannon to launch his projectile, he supplied it with rockets for steering. What makes this a real plus for Verne is that he was the first person ever to suggest that rockets would work just as well in a vacuum as in air.It would appear, finally, that the honor of describing the first unambiguous rocket-propelled spaceship goes to an American author, Elbert Perce. In his obscure 1857 novel Gulliver Joi, he describes a journey to a unknown planet, “Kailoo”. The spacecraft is a hollow cylinder made of a very light substance that is nevertheless as hard as iron. It is only just large enough to contain its single passenger. The rear of the cylinder is sharply pointed. The cylinder is placed in a frame to which are attached powerful steel springs. Released by a trigger, these would give the projectile its initial velocity. In the pointed end of the spacecraft is placed a strong, square steel box, which contains a newly invented powder. From one end of the box extends a small, very strong tube. When the box is heated by the “malleable flame,” a kind of perpetually burning globular mass resembling molten iron, the powder inside ignites.At the time for takeoff the inventor inserts the malleable flame and “instantly a stream of fire issued from it, striking the rock with great violence […] The old man then pulled the small trigger that confined the steel springs, and propelled by their force, and that of the flame, I shot up into the air, the long broad flame of fire streaming behind me like the blaze of a comet”. Once the rocketeer found himself approaching Kailoo he “shut off the supply of flame that propelled” him and descended to the surface.And if all that isn’t a perfect description of a rocketship, I don’t know what is.[source | gif] -- source link