Hey there you are on my youtube channel.
I was able to open a youtube channel because
these three guys created it back in 2005.
But they were able to create YouTube because
of the internet.
And the internet was invented by Robert E.
Kahn and Vint Cerf.
We can literally keep going back like this.
My point here is this – Just look at How
many inventions and inventors had to come
together to produce one outcome, to make this
moment of interaction between you and me possible.
All of our inventions are interdependent.
So using the internet is impossible without
having a satellite in the space.
But to send satellite we need a rocket.
And the story of rocket is the interesting
one.
It spans across centuries and the generations
of rocket scientist.
Today we are able to launch a space missions
because in the 18th century a poor scientist
from Russia devoted his whole life to this
field and also because of the events which
occurred during and after the world war2.
Hi, Guys welcome to Eclectic – Here we talk
about History, philosophy, politics and Future
tech.
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Historians believe the Chinese developed the
first real rockets around the first century
A.D.
They were used for colorful displays during
religious festivals, similar to modern fireworks.
For the next few hundred years, rockets were
mainly used as military weapons.
Today we are dreaming about colonizing the
mars and becoming a multi-planetary species
only because of the hard work of these three
guys.
Without them, it would have been impossible
to even think about sending a satellite to
space.
In the modern era, those who work in spaceflight
today often acknowledge three “fathers of
rocketry” who helped push the first rockets
into space.
Only one of these three survived long enough
to see rockets being used for space exploration.
The Poor Visionary
Decades before the invention of car, the Russian
visionary Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was busy
in forming the theoretical basis for space
travel.
Tsiolkovsky lived most of his life in poverty
and isolation.
As youth, he spent most of his life in the
library, reading science journals, learning
newton’s laws of motion and applying them
to space travel.
In the era when people were using horse carts
for city to city travel Tsiolkovsky was dreaming
about travelling to the moon and Mars.
Without any help from scientific community,
He figured out the mathematics, physics, and
mechanics of rocket.
He also calculated the escape velocity of
the earth.
Which is the speed necessary for a rocket
to escape the gravity of the Earth.
In 1903, he published his famous rocket equation
which allows one to determine the maximum
velocity of a rocket when given its weight
and fuel supply.
The equation revealed that the relationship
between speed and fuel is exponential.
Normally one might assume that if you want
to double the velocity of a rocket, you simply
need to double the amount of fuel.
But instead, the amount of fuel you need rises
exponentially with the change in velocity.
Tsiolkovsky’s equation made it clear that
the rocket needs enormous amounts of fuel
to leave the Earth and to get an extra boost
in speed.
Without caring about people who made fun of
him and his poor economic condition, He kept
working tirelessly.
Tsiolkovsky’s guiding philosophy was “The
earth is our cradle, but we cannot be in the
cradle forever.”
Tsiolkovsky was too poor to convert his mathematical
equations into actual model.
But his equation helped next generation scientists
like Robert Goddard to actually build the
prototypes.
Robert Goddard first became interested in
science as a child witnessing the electrification
of his hometown.
First, he began experimenting with kites and
balloons then Goddard effectively figured
out ways to apply Newton’s laws to rocketry.
He invented usable scientific tools by introducing
three innovations.
First Goddard experimented with different
types of fuels and realized that powdered
fuel is insufficient.
The Chinese had invented gunpowder centuries
earlier and used it for rockets, but gunpowder
burns unevenly and hence rocket remained a
mere toy for centuries.
Goddard’s first innovative idea was to replace
powdered fuel with the liquid fuel because
liquid fuel can be precisely controlled.
He build a rocket with two tanks.
One tank contained a fuel such as alcohol
and the other tank contained an oxidizer such
as liquid oxygen.
Goddard realized that as the rocket rose into
the sky, its fuel gradually decreased.
So his next innovation was to introduce multistage
rockets that can get rid of the empty fuel
tanks and therefore could lose some weight
along the way.
This increased the rockets range and efficiency.
His third innovation was the gyroscope.
It is a device used for measuring or maintaining
orientation and angular velocity.
Goddard realized that he could use gyroscopes
to keep his rockets on target.
In 1926, he made history with the first successful
launch of a liquid fuel rocket.
It rose 41 feet into the air, stayed in the
air just for 2.5 seconds and landed 184 feet
away in the cabbage pitch.
Despite his success, Goddard’s colleagues
and many prominent media outlets made fun
of him.
When scientist community and media found out
that Robert goddard is giving serious thought
to space travel.
The New York time published an article which
mocked and questioned Robert Goddard’s knowledge
about the rocketry.
In 1930s, there was a misconception that rockets
will not be able to move in the vacuum of
outer space.
However, newton’s third law which states
every action has equal and opposite reaction
very much applies to space travel.
In a rocket, the action is the hot gas ejected
out of one end, while the reaction is the
forward motion of the rocket that propels
it, even in the vacuum of space.
Goddard died in 1945 and did not live long
enough to see the apology written by the editors
of the New York Times after the Apollo moon
landing in 1969.
Rockets for War and Peace
In the first phase of rocketry, we had the
dreamers like Tsiolkovsky, who worked out
the physics and mathematics of the space travel.
In the second phase we had people like Goddard
who actually built prototypes of these rockets.
In the third phase rocket scientists worked
with the major government during and after
world war two.
In this phase rockets were first used as the
weapons of mass destruction and then for the
space exploration.
Baron Wernher Von Braun was one of the most
celebrated rocket scientist.
He worked on the sketches and prototypes of
his predecessors and tried to develop and
perfect them.
After completing his Ph.d, Von Braun spent
most of his time working for the Berlin Rocket
society, an organization that used spare parts
to build and test rockets.
Von Braun might have become a professor of
physics at some German University.
But war was in the air, and all of Germany
including the universities were being militarized.
Unlike the Robert Goddard who could not convince
the US military to fund his projects, Von
Braun got heavy funding from the German Government
under Hitler.
German military wanted to use von braun’s
knowledge for building the weapons of mass
destruction.
Under Von Braun’s leadership, the scribblings
and sketches of tsiolkovsky and the prototypes
of Goddard became the vengeance weapon the
V2 rocket.
The V2 set a number of records, shattering
all past achievements in terms of speed and
range for a rocket.
It was the first long range guided ballistic
missile.
Was the first rocket to break the sound barrier?
And most impressively, it was the first rocket
ever to leave the boundary of the atmosphere
and enter outer space.
Unfortunately this revolutionary invention
was only used for terrorizing London and blowing
up entire city blocks.
Suddenly it appered as if the future of Europe,
and western civilization itself, might hinge
upon the work of a small, isolated band of
scientists led by
Von Braun.
However, Germany lost the world war 2.
Von Braun and one hundred of his assistants
surrendered to the allies.
But hey what happened to the v2 missiles which
were stocked up in the Germany?
Soviet Russia and United States captured those
missiles.
They sent those missiles to their respective
countries so that scientist can study them,
reverse engineer them and build the new ones.
The entire US and Soviet Union arsenals were
based on the modifying the V2 rockets.
Rocketry and Superpower Rivalry
One of the major goals of both the United
states and Soviet Union was launching the
first artificial satellite.
The soviets took the basic v2 design and quickly
built series of rockets based on it.
Soviet Union outperformed the united states
and became the first country to send an artificial
satellite to space.
This is how Americans reacted after soviet
union became first country to reach space.
Since then we have sent more than 8 thousand
satellites to space.
Scientists of 21st century are talking about
making humans a multi-planetary species, establishing
a permanent moon base, colonizing mars and
mining the moon.
But without Tsiolokovsky, Robert Goddard and
Von Braun we could not have achieved this
fit.
Only one them stayed alive to see the dream
of reaching space being fulfilled.
The other two however died decades before
seeing how their work helped us in reaching
the space.
Tsiolkovosky and Robert Goddard never got
the respect or acknowledgment they deserved
while they were alive.
Still they kept working and bestowed their
work upon the next generation.
They both died but their work stayed alive
and inspired the generations of rocket scientist.
And at the end here is a gentle reminder of
what this channel is all about.
At my channel I make videos on our past our
present and our possible future – In that
process I cover topics like history, philosophy,
politics, science, technology, the social
issues of 21 century and much more.
So consider subscribing if you are interested
in any of that.
If you are economically well of consider supporting
me on patreon.
