Before I start talking about modern day spaceflight and New Horizons, SpX-7, and Progress M-28M, it is critical to go back in time to the very origins of spaceflight and the pioneers who paved the way. Today, I will discuss the three main pioneers of rocketry, the rocket equation, the V-2 rocket, and the origins of spaceflight. Over the next several posts, I will gradually get to recent events beginning with the SpX-7 mission failure.
While many people helped develop spaceflight and rocketry into what it is today there are three men considered its pioneers; Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Hermann Oberth, and Robert H. Goddard. While some consider the Chinese invention of fireworks as the beginning of rocketry, for the sake of this blog I will avoid that and begin with these three pioneers in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Tsiolkovsky is best known for his “formula of aviation” which is now known as the Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation or just simply the rocket equation. It states that the change in velocity is equal to the specific impulse of the rockets engine multiple by the natural log of the rockets initial mass divided by its final mass. This equation paved the way for Oberth and Goddard to begin their work in rocketry. Robert Goddard was an American physicist who designed and built the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket. This rocket was launched on March 16, 1926. Between 1926 and 1941, Goddard and his team would go on to launch an additional 33 rockets reaching heights of 2.6 kilometers, and speeds of up to 885 kilometers per hour. While Goddard is best known for his work on liquid rockets he also came up with this idea of a multi-stage rocket. A multi-stage rocket utilizes the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation better than a single stage as once a stage runs out of fuel, a large amount of mass is released allowing the remaining fuel to be utilized more efficiently. He also tested early ion engines and basic rocket control systems. Lastly, Hermann Oberth was an Austro-Hungarian born German physicist. Like Goddard, Oberth came up with the idea of a multi-stage rocket around the same time. In 1929 with the assistance of his 18 year old student, Wernher von Braun, tested a liquid-fueled rocket. Most of Oberth’s work relates to the math involving rocketry and was paper and pencil work but he also taught von Braun who would become one of the world’s leaders in building rockets like the V-2, and Saturn V.
Wernher von Braun was a German rocket scientist who trained under Hermann Oberth. He is credited with designing the V-2 rocket and the Saturn V. The V-2 Rocket was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. In addition, it was also the first man-made object to cross the boundary of space, the Karman line (100km above Sea Level). The V-2 entered service in June 1944. Following World War 2, von Braun alongside a number of other Nazi scientists were moved to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. His team alongside other American engineers began development of the Redstone rocket but more on that later.
With the first V-2 test to cross the Karman line, the history of spaceflight began. For the first three years only various configurations and modifications of the V-2 rocket were launched. Then on May 30, 1947, the first US designed rocket launched, the Hermes B-1 followed by the Aerobee RTV-N-8 on November 24 of the same year. Slowly other rockets entered and exited the space while the V-2 remained dominant until the Soviet Union launched the R-1 rocket for the first time on September 17, 1948. Later the Soviet Union entered the R-2E into service making the dominant rockets the V-2, R-1, and R-2E. The United States continued to design new rockets and retire them after only a few flights while the Soviet Union would make modifications to their existing R-1, or R-2 rockets. Eventually the US decided to stick with a major line of rockets, the Aerobee series which consisted of a wide range of rockets. Most US launches were from the White Sands missile test facility, while the majority of Soviet Union launches were from Kapustin Yar. On February 20, France launched their 1st rocket which failed but they would conduct a successful launch the following day. Their rocket was the Veronique-NA launched from Hammaguira Bechar. By the end of 1954 only Nazi Germany, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union were able to launch rockets past the Karman line. However, all of these launches were sub-orbital as they were unable to reach the altitude and or velocity necessary to reach orbit.
In my next post, I will begin with the start of the Space Race in 1955 and go through the end of 1965. Today, I talked about the origins of spaceflight, the pioneers, and the start of launches. Over the next several posts, I will discuss 10 years of spaceflight up until I reach 2015. Once I get there I will begin posts specific to a topic as I mentioned at the beginning of the post. Thank you for reading today and I hope to get the next post out before July 13th.
