Midterm Lecture No.

ROCKET HISTORY AND EVOLUTION

History of Rocketing:
Historians believe that armies began hurling combustible weapons toward one
another as early as 1,000 B.C.

At the time, fire pots were used to set fires. Fire pots were simply pots containing
flammable materials like naphtha that were ignited and hurled by various
mechanical devices.

The concept was simple, yet effective as fire pots were able to be easily deployed
and could set fires over fairly large areas. Still, these were not Rockets in the
traditional sense.
Goes back to the 19th century in china, from the developments occurred in Mongolia,
India, Britain, America and Russia among many others.

The availability of black powder (gun powder) to propel projectiles was a precursor
to the development of the first solid rocket.

Ninth century, Chinese Taoist alchemist invented black powder while searching for
the elixir of life; this invention led to experiments in the form of weapons such as
bombs, cannon, incendiary fire arrows and rocket-propelled fire arrows.
Duck engine is a form of engine that possesses an inlet duck, for example a turbo
jet, ramjet, or turbofan. Rockets are not considered duck engines.

From looking at historical reports, the observatories that were builds from way
back all over the world to see the heavenly skies, we can see that humans were
fascinated with reading the skies and dreamed of going to space.

This was no small dream since it took quite a few centuries for us to develop the
technology to fly and then finally escape earth’s orbit the Chinese and
Mesopotamians were the 1st civilizations to use rocket as fireworks.
Rockets gained popularity as weapon by the Chinese during
their wars with Mongols and were in wars against the Arabs.

It was in the 20th century that rockets and space technology

evolved and man was finally able to achieve space travel.
The Evolution of Rocket and Missile Technology

17th Century:

• 1633 – Lagâri Hasan Çelebi launched in a 7-winged rocket using

50 okka (140 lbs.) of gunpowder from Sarayburnu, the point
below Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.

• 1650 – The "Great Art of Artillery, the First Part" is printed in

Amsterdam, about a year before the death of its author,
Kazimierz Siemienowicz.
19th Century:

• 1803 - The British Army develops the Congreve rocket based on

weapons used against them by Tipu Sultan.

• 1806 - Claude Ruggieri a black Italian living in France launched

animals on rockets, and recovered them using parachutes. He
was prevented from launching a child by police. His rockets were
capable of launching rams.
19th Century:

• 1813 - "A Treatise on the Motion of Rockets" by William Moore –

first appearance of the rocket equation

• 1865 - Jules Verne publishes From the Earth to the Moon as a

humorous science fantasy story about a space gun launching a
manned spacecraft equipped with rockets for landing on the Moon,
but eventually used for another orbital maneuver.
20th Century:

• 1903 - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky begins a series of papers discussing

the use of rocketry to reach outer space, space suits, and
colonization of the solar system. Two key points discussed in his
works are liquid fuels and staging.

• 1922 - Hermann Oberth publishes the "By Rocket into Planetary

Space".

• 1926 - Robert Goddard launches the first liquid fuel rocket.

20th Century:

• 1942 - Wernher Von Braun and Walter Dornberger launch

the first V-2 rocket at Peenemünde in northern Germany.

• 1942 - A V-2 rocket becomes the first man-made object in

space.

• 1949 - Willy Ley publishes The Conquest of Space

• 1952 - Wernher von Braun discusses the technical details

of a manned exploration of Mars in The Mars Project.
20th Century:

• 1957 - The USSR launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite.

• 1958 - The U.S. launches Explorer 1, the first American artificial

satellite, on a Jupiter-C rocket.

• 1961 - the USSR launches Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin reached a height

of 327 km above Earth and was the first man to orbit earth.
20th Century:

• 1961 - US, a Mercury capsule named Freedom 7 with Alan B. Shepard,

spacecraft was launched by a Redstone rocket on a ballistic trajectory suborbital
flight.

• 1962 - The US launches Mercury MA-6 (Friendship 7) on an Atlas D Booster,

John Glenn finally puts America in orbit.

• 1963 - The USSR launches Vostok-6, Valentina Tereshkova was the first
woman (and first civilian) to orbit earth. She remained in space for nearly three
days and orbited the earth 48 times.
20th Century:

• 1963 - US X-15 rocket-plane, the first reusable manned spacecraft

(sub-orbital) reaches space, pioneering reusability, carried
launch and glide landings.

• 1965 - USSR Proton rocket, highly successful launch vehicle with

notable payloads, Salyut-6 & Salyut-7, MIR & ISS
components

• 1965 - Robert Salked investigates various single stage to orbit

space plane concepts
20th Century:

• 1966 - USSR Lunar 9, the first soft landing on the Moon

• 1966 - USSR launches Soyuz spacecraft, longest-running series of

spacecraft, eventually serving Soviet, Russian and
International space missions.

• 1969 - US Apollo 11, first men on the Moon, first lunar surface
extravehicular activity.
20th Century:

• 1981 - US space shuttle pioneers reusability and glide landings

• 1998 - US Deep Space 1 is first deep space mission to use an-ion

thruster for propulsion

• 1998 - Russia launch Zarya module which is the first part of

International Space Station
21st Century:

• 2001 - Russian Soyuz spacecraft sent the first space tourist Dennis
Tito to International Space Station

• 2004 - US-based, first privately developed, manned (sub-orbital)

spaceflight, Space Ship One demonstrates reusability

• 2010 – Space X Falcon 9 successfully launched.

END OF THE MIDTERM LECTURE NO. 1