Page 66 - Intro to Space Sciences Spacecraft Applications

CHAPTER 3

Propulsion

When Newton theorized the possibility of placing an object into an
orbit around the earth, not only could very few imagine a purpose for such
an endeavor, no one could imagine a way to even attempt the feat. While
rockets had been a part of man’s history ever since the ancient Chinese
had used them for dazzling fireworks displays, uses for such systems had
been limited to the purpose (primarily military) of hurling munitions from
one point to impact another on the surface of the earth. In fact, this was
still the main purpose even after technology allowed man to consider
Newton’s musings possible.
The modern ideas of rocket propulsion actually had their beginnings in
the 1880s in the small Russian town of Kaluga, south of Moscow. There,
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky worked out the fundamental laws of rocket
propulsion and published his work proving the feasibility of achieving
orbital velocities via rockets in 1903-the same year of the Wright broth-
ers’ first successful powered flight! Tsiolkovsky had earlier accurately
described the phenomenon of weightlessness in space (1 883), predicted
earth satellites (1 895), and suggested the use of liquid hydrogen and oxy-
gen as propellants, which three-quarters of a century later were used to
send men to the moon.
With no knowledge of the work of the Russian scientist, Robert H.
Goddard began studying rocketry shortly before World War I. In 1919, the
Massachusetts physics teacher sent a 69-page treatise to the Smithsonian
Institution entitled “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes.” The
“extreme altitude” he was referring to turned out to be none other than the
moon, and his treatise earned him a great deal of ridicule from the press
at the time. On March 16, 1926, Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled
rocket in history which burned for 2.5 seconds and landed a few hundred
feet away in his aunt’s cabbage patch. The press, once again, had a good
time with headlines like “Moon Rocket Misses Target by 238,7991.4
Miles.” Nonetheless, Goddard, backed by grants from the Guggenheim

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