Rocket

A

Early Military Rockets

In the early 1800s, British inventor William Congreve noted reports of Indian rockets employed against British forces. Congreve greatly improved rockets as weapons by attaching warheads, or bombs that would explode after the rocket was launched, and by increasing the ranges of rockets. These Congreve rockets were accurate and powerful enough to use against the firearms of the early 1800s. The rockets still used poles, or sticks, to stabilize the rockets in flight. Britain used Congreve rockets against the United States in the War of 1812 (1812-1815), and other countries copied the rocket design.

Despite their stabilizing poles, Congreve rockets were often inaccurate. In 1844 British inventor William Hale invented the stickless or spin-stabilized rocket, in which the exhaust gases caused the rocket to spin in flight. The spinning helped stabilize the rocket, eliminating the need for the clumsy guidestick and making the rocket more accurate. By the 1890s, the gunpowder war rocket finally fell out of use as guns improved and again became more accurate weapons than rockets.

B

Developing More Powerful Rockets

In the 1880s, Russian teacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky theorized that rockets might be useful for spaceflight. Although Sir Isaac Newton wrote his third law of motion in the 1680s, few scientists recognized that this law applied to rocket motion. Most scientists still believed that rockets moved because their exhaust gases pushed against air, so rockets could not be used in the vacuum of space.

B

1

Early Ideas

In 1903 Tsiolkovsky began publishing his theories, but his early writings were not circulated outside his native Russia. In World War I (1914-1918), rockets were used only as signals and simple antiballoon weapons. Meanwhile, American physicist Robert H. Goddard evolved his own theories, independently of Tsiolkovsky, about the use of the rocket for spaceflight. Goddard also began experimenting with new solid-fueled rockets.

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In 1919 the Smithsonian Institution published Goddard’s findings in a small booklet called A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. In this booklet, Goddard wrote about his use of smokeless powder as an improvement over gunpowder and how instrumented rockets could help explore the upper atmosphere. He also briefly mentioned the theoretical possibility of an unpiloted solid-fueled rocket reaching the Moon. Goddard’s theory was widely published in newspapers and helped make the world conscious of the possibility of rocket-powered spaceflight. Goddard, a shy man, continued his experiments with more secrecy. In 1921 he began experimenting with liquid propellants. On March 16, 1926, Goddard launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket, though few people knew about it at the time. Goddard’s overall impact was therefore less than generally believed.

During this same time period in Germany, Rumanian-born mathematics teacher Hermann Oberth independently developed his own theories on spaceflight. In 1923 Oberth published Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space), which was about liquid-propellant rockets for piloted spaceflight. Die Rakete had an even larger impact than Goddard’s booklet and led to an international spaceflight movement, which was especially strong in Germany.

In the 1920s and 1930s spaceflight and rocketry clubs sprang up in Europe (especially Germany) and the United States and undertook their own experiments. The most important of these groups was the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR, or Society for Spaceship Travel). The VfR started their experiments in 1930. During the same year, Goddard moved his experimental work away from populated areas to a location near Roswell, New Mexico. He was looking for privacy, safety, and good launching weather.

B

2

World War II

In 1932 the German army hired Wernher von Braun, a bright young member of the VfR, for its own secret rocket program. The program started modestly, but funding increased with the approach of World War II (1939-1945). In 1937 the German Rocket Research Center opened at Peenemünde with von Braun as its technical director. Contrary to a popular misconception, the Germans were unaware of the details of Goddard’s work and developed their rockets independently.

During World War II, the Germans developed a variety of solid- and liquid-fueled missiles that were more sophisticated than those of the Allies. The most important of these missiles was the A-4, later called the V-2, the world’s first large-scale liquid-fueled rocket with a thrust of 250,000 N (56,000 lb) and a range of about 300 km (about 200 mi). At the war’s end, both the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) scrambled to capture V-2 parts, plans, and scientists. United States troops brought V-2 material and personnel, including von Braun, back to the United States.

C

Rockets of the Cold War

Shortly after the end of World War II, the USSR and the United States disagreed over the control of Europe and entered a period of tense relations called the Cold War. The Cold War included a race to develop rockets as weapons and as launch vehicles for the space race, a contest for “firsts” in space. The Cold War also gave rise to increasingly advanced missiles, which led to an uneasy balance of power between the two nations for several decades.

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