THE ENGINES THAT
CAME IN FROM THE COLD

• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935)

  Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was the first person to adopt a scientific approach to rocket-powered space travel. At the tender age of 24, he summarised the relationships between rocket velocity, mass of propellant and velocity of ejected gases. This was his famous ‘rocket equation’, which laid the theoretical foundations for future rocket design. Another of his bright ideas was the use of liquids rather than solid propellants. However, although he laid the foundations of rocket science he never actually built any rockets.

• Robert Goddard (1882-1945)

  When Robert Goddard was 16 years old, he read HG Wells' science fiction classic, War of the Worlds. It sparked a lifelong fascination with rockets. It was a few years before he started experimenting with rocket designs, but at the age of 37 he published a research paper called ‘A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes’. As well as some serious scientific ideas, the paper included the tongue-in-cheek suggestion of creating a rocket to fly to the Moon. The science was largely ignored, and the Moon idea gave people the impression that Goddard was just a crank.

  He pursued his ideas however, and on March 16, 1926 he launched the first ever recorded flight of a liquid-fuelled rocket. It travelled a mere 56 metres - a short hop for a rocket but a huge leap forward for rocket science.

  Goddard’s work led to more than 200 rocket-related patents and earned him the honour of becoming known as 'the father of the modern rocket'.

• Sergei Korolev (1907-1966)

  The founding father of the Soviet Space Programme, Korolev started his career designing the aerodynamics for one of the simplest forms of flying - the glider. But from 1932 onwards, he turned his intellect and attention to jet propulsion and then to rocket science. His designs included Russia's first rocket-propelled manned aircraft, the RP-318.

  In 1938, Korolev was jailed on Stalin’s orders. As a prisoner, he was made to work first in a gold mine, and later in one of the newly created ‘prison design bureaux’ where he worked with the famous aircraft designer, Tupolev.

  In 1942 he was transferred to work as deputy director for flight testing of rocket-assisted aircraft and later became part of a team developing a jet-powered equivalent of the German V-1. After his release from prison, Korolev went to Germany as part of a team sent by Stalin to find out as much as possible about German rocket technology.

  In 1946 he was made the head of Scientific Research Institute NII-88, the first Soviet missile development centre. As chief designer, he was responsible for the R-1, based directly on the German A4 (V2) rocket. The first Soviet-design missile, the R2-E, was launched in 1949. His team went on to create the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7, setting both the arms race and the space race in motion.

  His leadership and design skills resulted in the world-first launches of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, and led the Russian efforts to put the first human on the Moon until his unexpected death in 1966.

• Werner Von Braun (1912-1977)

  A space travel enthusiast from the start, Von Braun studied mechanical engineering in Berlin, and by the age of 22 his thesis on liquid-fuelled rocket engines - based on secret research he was doing for the German military - had earned him a doctorate in physics.

  He went on to design the A4 rocket, later known as the V2, which had its first successful flight in October 1942. The first V2 missile landed on London in September 1944.

  At the end of the war he and his team, not wanting to be captured by the Soviet army, surrendered to United States forces. Over the next five years he directed test firings of captured V2 rockets and then moved on to develop the Redstone rockets which would launch the first US satellite, Explorer 1 and carry the first American - Alan B Shepherd - into space.

  He became a US citizen in 1955, and joined NASA when it was set up in 1958, designing the Saturn rockets which eventually took the first humans to the moon.

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Rocket science

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