A Pictorial T he mighty space rockets of today are the result

of more than 2,000 years of invention, experi-

mentation, and discovery. First by observation and
History of inspiration and then by methodical research, the
foundations for modern rocketry were laid.

Rockets Building upon the experience of two millennia, new

rockets will expand human presence in space back
to the Moon and Mars. These new rockets will be
versatile. They will support Earth orbital missions,
such as the International Space Station, and off-
world missions millions of kilometers from home.
Already, travel to the stars is possible. Robotic
spacecraft are on their way into interstellar space
as you read this. Someday, they will be followed by
human explorers.

Often lost in the shadows of time, early rocket

pioneers “pushed the envelope” by creating rocket-
propelled devices for land, sea, air, and space.
When the scientific principles governing motion
were discovered, rockets graduated from toys and
novelties to serious devices for commerce, war,
travel, and research. This work led to many of the
most amazing discoveries of our time.

The vignettes that follow provide a small sampling

of stories from the history of rockets. They form a
rocket time line that includes critical developments
and interesting sidelines. In some cases, one story
leads to another, and in others, the stories are inter-
esting diversions from the path. They portray the
inspirations that ultimately led to us taking our first
steps into outer space. NASA’s new Space Launch
System (SLS), commercial launch systems, and the
rockets that follow owe much of their success to the
accomplishments presented here.

Rockets Educator Guide 1

 Steam, Sparks, Explosions, and Flight

Archytas, 428 to 347 B.C.

Archytas, a Greek philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, was said to
have constructed and flown a small bird-shaped device that was propelled
by a jet of steam or compressed air. The ‘bird’ may have been suspended
by a wire or mounted at the end of a bar that revolved around some sort of
pivot. This was the first reported device to use rocket propulsion.

Hero Engine, c. A.D. 10 to 70

Though not a rocket, the main principle behind rocket (and jet) propulsion
was employed in a steam engine invented by Hero of Alexandria. The exact
appearance of Hero’s engine is not known, but it consisted of some sort
of copper vessel heated by a fire beneath. Water in the vessel turned into
steam and traveled up two tubes to a hollow sphere that was free to rotate.
Two L-shaped tubes from the sphere allowed the steam to escape in jets of
gas. The sphere rotated rapidly in the opposite direction of the jets. The Hero
engine was seen as an amusing toy, and its potential was not realized for a
thousand years.

Chinese Fire Arrows, A.D. 1232

The origins of gunpowder are not clear, but the Chinese reportedly had a
rudimentary form of it in the first century. A mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, and
charcoal dust produced colorful sparks and smoke when ignited. The pow-
der was used to make fireworks. Tubes of bamboo and leather, closed at one
end, were packed with gunpowder. Depending upon how the powder was
packed and the size of the opening, a fountain of sparks or a bang would
result when the powder was ignited. It is likely that some fireworks skit-
tered about because of the thrust produced from the gases escaping the
open end. Thus, the rocket was born. By 1232, these primitive rockets were
attached to arrows and used to repel Mongol invaders in the battle
of Kai-keng.

Roger Bacon, c. 1214 to c. 1292

A monk, Bacon wrote about gunpowder in his The Epistola Fratris R.
Baconis, de secretis operibus artis et naturae et nullitate magiae: “We can,
with saltpeter and other substances, compose artificially a fire that can be
launched over long distances....By only using a very small quantity of this
material much light can be created accompanied by a horrible fracas. It is
possible with it to destroy a town or an army....” Bacon is thought to have
developed improved gunpowder formulas that greatly increased the mixture’s
power.

Rockets Educator Guide 2

 Wan Hu, Sixteenth Century
According to legend Wan Hu, a Chinese stargazer and local official living
sometime around the middle of the Ming dynasty, dreamed of spaceflight.
He constructed a chair and attached 47 gunpowder rockets to its base. In
some versions of the story, his chair also had kite wings. On launch day, 47
assistants rushed up and simultaneously lit the fuses of all the rockets. A
huge explosion followed. When the smoke cleared, Wan Hu was gone. Some
have suggested Wan Hu actually made it into space, and you can see him as
the “Man in the Moon.” Regardless of the actual end, Wan Hu had the right
idea—use rockets to travel into space.

Rockets Go to War
For centuries to come, rockets competed with cannons as the weapon of
choice for war. Each technological development moved one or the other
system into or out of favor. Cannons were more accurate. Rockets could be
fired more quickly. Breech-loading cannons speeded up the firing. Rocket
fins increased accuracy. Cannons had greater range. Rockets had greater
range. And so on. Invention abounded. Invented by Joanes de Fontana of
Italy (1420), a surface-running rocket torpedo was supposed to set enemy
ships on fire.

Kazimierz Siemienowicz, c. 1600 to c. 1651

Kazimierz Siemienowicz, a Polish-Lithuanian commander in the Polish Royal
Artillery, was an expert in the fields of artillery and rocketry. He wrote a
manuscript on rocketry that was partially published before his death. In Artis
Magnae Artilleriae pars prima, he published a design for multistage rockets
that was to become a fundamental rocket technology for rockets heading for
outer space. Siemienowicz also proposed batteries for military rocket launch-
ing and delta-wing stabilizers to replace the guiding rods currently in use with
military rockets. It was rumored that Siemienowicz was killed by members
of guilds that were opposed to him publishing their secrets, and they hid or
destroyed the remaining parts of his manuscript.

The Birth of Rocket Science

Galileo Galilei, 1564 to 1642

In addition to his many other accomplishments, this Italian astronomer and
mathematician rekindled the spirit of scientific experimentation and chal-
lenged old beliefs relating to mass and gravity. He proved that an object in
motion does not need the continuous application of force to keep moving.
He called this property of matter, which causes it to resist changes in veloc-
ity, “inertia.” Inertia is one of the fundamental properties that Isaac Newton
would later incorporate into his laws of motion.

Rockets Educator Guide 3

 Newton’s Laws of Motion, 1642 to 1727
English scientist Sir Isaac Newton condensed all rocket science into
three elegant scientific laws. Published in Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica his laws, previously understood intuitively by early rock-
eteers, provided the foundation for all modern rocket science. (The “Rocket
Principles” chapter focuses on these laws and the “Practical Rocketry” chap-
ter demonstrates the applications of these laws.)

Colonel William Congreve, 1772 to 1828

Following stunning rocket barrages against the British by the forces of
Tippoo Sultaun of India, William Congreve took charge of British military
rocket companies. Some of his designs had operational ranges of 6,000
yards. He created both case-shot rockets that sprayed the enemy with
carbine balls and incendiary rockets for burning ships and buildings. He
invented launching rockets from ships. The phrase “by the rocket’s red
glare,” coined by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, referred to
British-launched Congreve rockets.

Jules Verne, 1828 to 1905

The dream of traveling through space was brought to life by French science
fiction writer Jules Verne. In his De la Terre á la Lune, Verne used a giant can-
non to fire a manned projectile at the Moon. Although not a rocket, the pro-
jectile had some interesting parallels with the future Apollo Moon program. It
was called the Columbiad and contained a crew of three. It was fired at the
Moon from Florida. The Apollo 11 capsule was named Columbia, contained a
crew of three, and was launched from Florida. Verne correctly described how
the crew would feel “weightless” on their voyage. Of course, the crew would
not have survived the initial acceleration of the cannon firing. Nevertheless,
Verne, an early space exploration visionary, fired the imaginations of many
would-be rocketeers and future astronauts.

Modern Rocket Pioneers

Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, 1857 to 1935

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was a teacher, theorist, and astronautics pioneer. Son
of a Polish forester who emigrated to Russia, he wrote and taught extensively
about human space travel and is considered the father of cosmonautics and
human spaceflight. Tsiolkovsky advocated liquid propellant rocket engines,
orbital space stations, solar energy, and colonization of the solar system.
His most famous work, “Research into Interplanetary Space by Means of
Rocket Power,” was published in 1903, the same year the Wright brothers
achieved powered and controlled airplane flight. His rocket equation, based
on Newton’s second law of motion, relates rocket engine exhaust velocity to
the change in velocity of the vehicle itself.

Rockets Educator Guide 4

 Robert H. Goddard, 1882 to 1945
American college professor and scientist Robert Goddard built and flew
the world’s first liquid propellant rocket on March 16, 1926. Its flight, though
unimpressive (it climbed only 12.5 meters), was the forerunner of the Saturn
V Moon rocket 43 years later. At the request of local townsfolk, Goddard
moved his experiments from Auburn, Massachusetts, to the deserts around
Roswell, New Mexico. There he continued his experiments and developed
a gyroscope system to control his rockets in flight, instrumentation payload
compartments, and parachute recovery systems. He is often referred to as
the “father of modern rocketry.”

Hermann Oberth, 1894 to 1989

Hermann Oberth, a Romanian by birth and a naturalized German citizen,
became fascinated by the works of Jules Verne and devoted his life to pro-
moting space travel. His dissertation for the University of Heidelberg, rejected
for being too speculative, became the basis for his book Die Rakete zu den
Planetanraumen (By Rocket to Space). The book explained the mathemat-
ics of spaceflight and proposed practical rocket designs and space stations.
This and other books inspired a generation of rocketeers. Rocket societies
sprang up around the world, including the German Verein fur Raumschiffart
(Society for Space Travel) that led to the development of the V2 rocket.

Rocket Experimenters, Early Twentieth Century

In the 1920s and 1930s, leading up to World War II, amateur rocketeers and
scientists worldwide attempted to use rockets on airplanes, racing cars,
boats, bicycles with wings, throw lines for rescuing sailors from sinking ships,
mail delivery vehicles for off-shore islands, and anything else they could
dream up. Though there were many failures, experience taught the experi-
menters how to make their rockets more powerful and more reliable.

World War II

Flying Bombs
The necessities of war led to massive technological improvements in aero-
nautics and rocketry. Almost overnight, rockets graduated from novelties and
dream flying machines to sophisticated weapons of destruction. Rockets
propelled nearly unstoppable German fighter planes and Japanese Kamikaze
pilots with bombs into ships. War would never be the same again.

Rockets Educator Guide 5

 Vergeltungswaffe 2 - V2
In the late 1930s, the German Verein fur Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space
Travel) evolved into the team that built and flew the most advanced rocket
for the time, the V2. On the shores of the Baltic Sea, the team, under the
directorship of Wernher von Braun, created a rocket powered by alcohol and
liquid oxygen. With a range of 200 miles and a maximum altitude of 55 miles,
the V2 could deliver a 1-ton explosive warhead to the heart of London with-
out warning. Thousands of V2s were built, but they entered the war too late
to affect the outcome.

The Space Age Begins

Bumper Project
At the conclusion of the war in Europe, 300 trainloads of V2 rockets and
parts were captured and shipped to the United States along with the
majority of the principal designers, who decided beforehand to surrender
to American troops. The V2 became the basis of the intercontinental bal-
listic missile development program and led directly to the manned space
program. Employing one of the captured V2 rockets with a WAC Corporal
rocket (named for the Women’s Army Corps) at its top, the initial launch of
a “Bumper-WAC” took place on May 13, 1948. During six flights, the largest
two-stage rocket launched to date in the United States eventually reached an
altitude of almost 400 kilometers (250 miles).

The World’s First Artificial Satellite

At the conclusion of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union
engaged in a race for space. The Soviet Union won the first round by launch-
ing its Sputnik I satellite on October 4, 1957. The satellite had a spherical
design with four antenna. It weighed 83.6 kilograms (184.3 pounds). Two
months later, the 508.3-kilogram (1,118.26-pound) Sputnik II reached space
with a living passenger. Laika, a small dog, orbited Earth for a few hours.
Although she died in space, she led the way for all humans that followed.

Explorer 1
The United States entered the satellite-launching business on January 31,
1958 with the successful launch of Explorer 1. The satellite was launched
atop the Juno 1, a modified Jupiter-C booster. Though much smaller than the
Sputniks, only 13.93 kilograms (30.66 pounds)—Explorer 1’s Geiger counter
made the first important discovery about the space environment. Explorer
1 detected around Earth what would later be called the Van Allen Radiation
Belts.

Rockets Educator Guide 6

 X-15
Between 1959 and 1968, America’s X-15 experimental aircraft flew to the
edge of space. In 199 flights, the air-launched rocket plane broke many flight
records, including speed (7,274 kph or 4,520 mph) and altitude records (108
kilometers or 67 miles). Test flights established important parameters for atti-
tude control in space and re-entry angles. Neil Armstrong, the first American
to step on the Moon, was one of twelve X-15 pilots.

Yuri Gagarin Goes Into Orbit

On April 12, 1961, space became the domain of humans with the launch
of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. His spaceflight lasted 1 hour and 48 minutes.
During that time, Gagarin orbited Earth one time inside his Vostok 1 space
capsule, reaching a maximum altitude of 315 kilometers (196 miles). Upon re-
entry, Gagarin ejected himself from the capsule at an altitude of 6,100 meters
(20,000 feet) and parachuted safely to the ground.

Freedom 7
On May 5, 1961, American astronaut Alan Shepard, Jr., lifted off from Cape
Canaveral, Florida, inside his Freedom 7 Mercury space capsule, which sat
atop a Redstone rocket. The rocket did not have enough power to send the
craft into orbit, and Shepard made a suborbital flight reaching 187 kilometers
(116 miles) before his capsule returned to Earth in an ocean splashdown 15
minutes 22 seconds later.

Moon Rocket
Just days after Alan Shepard’s flight, President John F. Kennedy addressed
a joint session of Congress and challenged America to send an American
to the Moon and return him safely before the end of the decade. Although it
was a shockingly bold announcement, some of the steps to accomplish this
mission were already underway. NASA had begun work on components of
a rocket capable of a round trip lunar flight. By the next year, the rocket was
named the Saturn V. It would be 110.6 meters or 363 feet tall, dwarfing all
previous rockets. The Saturn V would consist of three stages, a capsule with
a small propulsion unit for the return trip, and a two-stage lunar lander.

Rockets Educator Guide 7

 Glenn Orbits Earth
On February 20, 1962, riding on a more powerful missile, the Atlas, astronaut
John H. Glenn, Jr., became the first American to go into orbit. Glenn’s flight
achieved parity with the Soviet program. Glenn orbited Earth three times for
a total of 4 hours and 55 minutes in space. A sensor switch led to an early
return. The sensor indicated that the Mercury capsule heat shield was loose,
but the shield was later determined to be firmly in place during flight. The
sensor was faulty. The last of the six Mercury flights took place on May 15,
1963, with astronaut Gordon Cooper remaining in space for nearly a day and
a half.

Preparing for the Moon

Project Gemini followed the Mercury missions. The Gemini space capsule,
riding on top of a Titan missile, contained two astronauts. During missions
lasting up to 14 days, Gemini astronauts pioneered spacewalking, spacecraft
rendezvous, and docking procedures. Important spacecraft systems, needed
for the coming Moon flights, were evaluated. Ten Gemini missions were flown
during 1965 and 1966. The Titan rocket, initially created as an intercontinen-
tal ballistic missile, went on to carry the Viking spacecraft to Mars and the
Voyager spacecraft to the outer solar system in the 1970s.

Dr. Wernher von Braun

One of the leading figures in the development of pre-war Germany’s rocket
program and the development of the V2 missile, von Braun (1912-1977)
became a leading proponent of America’s space program. He entered the
United States after the war and became a naturalized citizen. He worked on
the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and led the develop-
ment team that launched Explorer 1. Dr. von Braun was the chief architect
and engineer of the Saturn V Moon rocket. His popular writings and collabo-
ration with Disney on a “Tomorrowland” TV series did much to inspire the
next generation of rocket scientists and astronauts.

Gene Roddenberry
Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), a distinguished World War II bomber pilot
and commercial pilot, began his writing career penning stories about fly-
ing. He began writing for television and developed a concept for a “western”
series set among the stars. For three years (1966–1968), the Star Trek series
explored a wide range of scientific and social issues as humans traveled
across the galaxy. The series became so popular that the first space shuttle
orbiter test vehicle was named Enterprise after the star ship Enterprise. The
original show spawned several companion series and a string of movies.
Roddenberry, a visionary, inspired a generation of space travelers.

Rockets Educator Guide 8

 “One Small Step...”
At 10:56 p.m. EDT, July 20, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong set
foot on the Moon. It was the first time in history that humans had touched
another world. He was followed to the surface by Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. A
third astronaut, Michael Collins, remained in lunar orbit in the Apollo capsule.
The Apollo 11 mission was the first of six Moon landings extending to the end
of 1972. The astronauts’ spacecraft, the lunar module, consisted of descent
and ascent stages. The descent stage had four legs and a powerful rocket
engine to slow the craft for landing on the Moon. After surface explorations,
the upper part of the lander lifted off, using its own rocket engine, and ren-
dezvoused with the Apollo capsule for the return to Earth.

Skylab
Using a modified third stage of the Saturn V rocket, the United States
launched its first space station, called Skylab, into Earth orbit in 1973. Rather
than engines and fuel tanks, the interior of the third stage was fitted with
living quarters and laboratories for three astronauts for extended stays in
space. Solar panels provided electric power. Due to a problem during launch,
one of the large panels was lost. Nevertheless, three crews of astronauts
called Skylab home until 1974. The last crew remained in space 84 days.

Smaller Saturn
The Saturn V rocket was capable of launching 117,900 kilograms (260,000
pounds) into low-Earth orbit and 40,800 kilograms (90,000 pounds) to the
Moon. For some Apollo missions, though, a smaller Saturn was called for.
The Saturn IB was 68 meters (224 feet) tall and required a scaffold platform
nicknamed the “milk stool” to be placed on the pad designed for Saturn V
rockets. This enabled the Saturn IB to match up with swing arms from the
launch structure. The Saturn IB carried some of the early Apollo test mis-
sions, the three crews for Skylab, and the American crew for the 1975 historic
Apollo-Soyuz mission, linking astronauts and cosmonauts in orbit.

Orbits and Probes

Deep Space
The Titan rockets (1959–2005), used for launching the Gemini missions,
found wide use in launching unmanned payloads. Upgraded versions of
Titans lofted heavy satellites into Earth orbit and propelled important space-
craft to other planets. The Viking missions to Mars and the Voyager missions
to the outer planets and interstellar space are among its credits.

Rockets Educator Guide 9

 Sounding Rockets
Although rockets have generally gotten larger and more powerful, there are
many reasons for flying smaller rockets. The Canadian – designed Black
Brant sounding rocket has been flying since 1961 and has successfully
completed over 800 flights carrying small payloads such as cameras, instru-
ments, and microgravity experiments. The Black Brant’s reliability and low
cost has made it a favorite of researchers. The biggest multistage Black
Brants have payload capacities of about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and can
reach altitudes of up to 900 kilometers (560 miles).

Delta Family
With roots going back to the early 1960s, the American Delta rocket is one
of the most versatile of the commercial and military payload launch rock-
ets. Delta has many configurations, including multiple stages and heavy-lift
strap-on boosters that increase payload capacity to high orbits. The Delta
family has logged more than 325 launches, with a success rate exceeding 95
percent.

Atlas
Like the Delta rocket, the Atlas has deep roots. Now in its fifth major con-
figuration, the Atlas was created as a missile in the 1950s. It was adapted to
carry John Glenn and three other Mercury astronauts to space and has since
been used for many commercial, scientific, and military satellite launches and
interplanetary missions. The Atlas V rocket (shown) is the latest in the series.

Pegasus
Like the mythological creature, the Pegasus launch vehicle is winged. Lifted
to about 12,000 meters it is then air-launched from under the wing of a
carrier aircraft. This arrangement keeps launch costs low for small orbital
payloads.

Thirty Years
The space shuttle was a new concept for carrying crews and payloads into
low-Earth orbit. It consisted of a central external tank surrounded by two
solid rocket boosters and a winged orbiter. Only the orbiter, a spacecraft/
airplane/space truck, actually reached orbit. It was designed to be reusable
as were the solid rocket boosters. A new external tank was needed for each
mission. Inside a cavernous payload bay were science laboratories, space
probes, telescopes, or Earth-sensing systems. Many shuttle payloads con-
sisted of components for the International Space Station. At the end of a
shuttle mission, the orbiter reentered Earth’s atmosphere and glided to an
unpowered landing on a runway. The first space shuttle flight took place in
1981 and the last of its 135 missions concluded in 2011.

Rockets Educator Guide 10

 The Space Launch System and a New Era of Commercial Space Flight

The Space Launch System

NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, will be the most powerful rocket ever
built. It is an advanced launch vehicle for a new era of human exploration
beyond Earth’s orbit. With its unprecedented power and capabilities, SLS is
the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and large payloads to the
Moon on a single mission. Artemis I, an uncrewed flight test, will be the first
integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion space-
craft, SLS rocket, and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Cape
Canaveral, Florida.

The Dragon and the Falcon

The Dragon is the first orbital spacecraft launched and recovered by a private
company. As one of several private endeavors under NASA’s Commercial
Orbital Transportation Services program, Dragon was developed by Space
Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. It is an autonomous spacecraft that will
deliver to and return payloads and crew from the International Space Station.
It will ride on Falcon rockets also built by SpaceX. The Falcon is a family of
rockets to meet different mission requirements. The Falcon Heavy has the
ability to lift 64,000 kilograms to low-Earth orbit, making it the most powerful
U.S. rocket after NASA’s SLS rocket.

Dream Chaser
Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser was selected by NASA to pro-
vide cargo delivery, return, and disposal service for the International Space
Station under the Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contract. Dream
Chaser Tenacity will be the first orbital vehicle in the Dream Chaser space-
plane fleet. Dream Chaser will provide a minimum of six cargo missions to
and from the space station carrying critical supplies like food, water, and
science experiments.

Space Tourism
In 2004, SpaceShipOne successfully flew three missions to become the
first privately developed space vehicle to carry a pilot above 100 kilometers
(62.5 miles). Built by Burt Rutan and financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul
Allen, it won the $10 million Ansari X Prize. Using the next generation ver-
sion, SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic will offer suborbital flights to tourists and
researchers. SpaceShipTwo flights will originate from Spaceport America in
New Mexico. Soon, spaceflight will belong to all.

Rockets Educator Guide 11

 And Beyond?
Beginning more than 2,000 years ago, rock- “Those three men,” said he, “have carried
ets evolved from toys into complex machines into space all the resources of art, sci-
capable of amazing flights. Rockets are ence, and industry. With that, one can do
still the only means of travel to and through anything....”
space. Their evolution depended upon dis-
covery, necessity, and experimentation. The Jules Verne’s, “From Earth to the Moon.”
development of rockets did not move in a
straight line. Ideas and experiments founded
only in fantasy and not in science and math-
ematics often failed, but rocketeers gradually
learned. Spurring them on were dreamers and
doers like Jules Verne, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky,
Robert Goddard, Gene Roddenberry, and
Neil Armstrong. They plotted the course to
the future through words, inventions, and
accomplishments.

“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one

cannot live in the cradle forever.”
From a letter written by Tsiolkovsky, in 1911.

“It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the

dream of yesterday is the hope of today and
the reality of tomorrow.”

Goddard’s high school graduation oration,

“On Taking Things for Granted,” June 1904.

“...to seek out new life, new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.

”Star Trek television series opening theme.“

That’s one step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind.”Neil Armstrong on the Moon.

Who will be the dreamers and doers of tomorrow? Where will they take us?