Konstantin Tsiolkovsky facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky
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| Born | 17 September [O.S. 5 September] 1857 Izhevskoye, Ryazan Governorate, Russian Empire
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| Died | 19 September 1935 (aged 78) Kaluga, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
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| Nationality | Russian |
| Known for | Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronautic theory |
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (5 September 1857 – 19 September 1935)) was a Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory. Along with the French Robert Esnault-Pelterie, the German Hermann Oberth and the American Robert H. Goddard, he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry and astronautics.
His works later inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers such as Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko and contributed to the success of the Soviet space program.
In 1903, he wrote Means of Reaction Devices, which was the first serious study on how to use rockets to launch spacecraft. He calculated the speed needed to reach orbit around the Earth (at 8 km/s). He also wrote that a multi-stage rocket, using liquid fuel could reach that speed. He recommended liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, though other fuels could be used. He was correct on these points.
Tsiolkovsky spent most of his life in a log house on the outskirts of Kaluga, about 200 km (120 mi) southwest of Moscow. A recluse by nature, his unusual habits made him seem bizarre to his fellow townsfolk.
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Early life and education
Tsiolkovsky was born in Izhevskoye (now in Spassky District, Ryazan Oblast), in the Russian Empire, to a middle-class family. His father, Makary Edward Erazm Ciołkowski, was a Polish forester of Roman Catholic faith who relocated to Russia; his Russian Orthodox mother was of mixed Volga Tatar and Russian origin. His father was successively a forester, teacher, and minor government official.
At the age of 10, Konstantin caught scarlet fever and became hard of hearing. He was not admitted to elementary schools because of his hearing problem, so he was self-taught. As a reclusive home-schooled child, he passed much of his time by reading books and became interested in mathematics and physics. As a teenager, he began to contemplate the possibility of space travel.
Tsiolkovsky spent three years attending a Moscow library where Russian cosmism supporter Nikolai Fyodorov worked. He later came to believe that colonizing space would lead to the perfection of the human species, with immortality and a carefree existence.
Additionally, inspired by the fiction of Jules Verne, Tsiolkovsky theorized many aspects of space travel and rocket propulsion. He is considered the father of spaceflight and the first person to conceive the space elevator, becoming inspired in 1895 by the newly constructed Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Afterwards, Tsiolkovsky passed the teacher's exam and went to work at a school in Borovsk near Moscow. He also met and married his wife Varvara Sokolova during this time. Despite being stuck in Kaluga, a small town far from major learning centers, Tsiolkovsky managed to make scientific discoveries on his own.
Scientific achievements
Tsiolkovsky stated that he developed the theory of rocketry only as a supplement to philosophical research on the subject. He wrote more than 400 works including approximately 90 published pieces on space travel and related subjects. Among his works are designs for rockets with steering thrusters, multistage boosters, space stations, airlocks for exiting a spaceship into the vacuum of space, and closed-cycle biological systems to provide food and oxygen for space colonies.
Tsiolkovsky's first scientific study dates back to 1880–1881. His work, "The Mechanics of the Animal Organism", received favorable feedback. Tsiolkovsky's main works after 1884 dealt with four major areas: the scientific rationale for the all-metal balloon (airship), streamlined airplanes and trains, hovercraft, and rockets for interplanetary travel.
Tsiolkovsky developed the first aerodynamics laboratory in Russia in his apartment. In 1897, he built the first Russian wind tunnel with an open test section and developed a method of experimentation using it. Tsiolkovsky's work in the field of aerodynamics was a source of ideas for Russian scientist Nikolay Zhukovsky, the father of modern aerodynamics and hydrodynamics.
After writing out this equation, Tsiolkovsky recorded the date: 10 May 1897. In the same year, the formula for the motion of a body of variable mass was published in the thesis of the Russian mathematician I. V. Meshchersky ("Dynamics of a Point of Variable Mass," I. V. Meshchersky, St. Petersburg, 1897).
His most important work, published in May 1903, was Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices (Russian: Исследование мировых пространств реактивными приборами). The outward appearance of Tsiolkovsky's spacecraft design, published in 1903, was a basis for modern spaceship design. The design had a hull divided into three main sections. The pilot and copilot were in the first section, the second and third sections held the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen needed to fuel the spacecraft.
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Tsiolkovsky conceived a number of ideas that have been later used in rockets. They include: gas rudders (graphite) for controlling a rocket's flight and changing the trajectory of its center of mass, the use of components of the fuel to cool the outer shell of the spacecraft (during re-entry to Earth) and the walls of the combustion chamber and nozzle, a pump system for feeding the fuel components, the optimal descent trajectory of the spacecraft while returning from space, etc.
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Tsiolkovsky championed the idea of the diversity of life in the universe and was the first theorist and advocate of human spaceflight.
Tsiolkovsky never built a rocket; he apparently did not expect many of his theories to ever be implemented.
Hearing problems did not prevent the scientist from having a good understanding of music, as outlined in his work "The Origin of Music and Its Essence."
Later life and death
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Although Tsiolkovsky supported the Bolshevik Revolution, he did not particularly thrive under a communist system. Eager to promote science and technology, the new Soviet government elected him a member of the Socialist Academy in 1918. He worked as a high school mathematics teacher until retiring in 1920 at the age of 63. In 1921, he received a lifetime pension.
Only late in his lifetime was Tsiolkovsky honored for his pioneering work. In particular, his support of eugenics made him politically unpopular. However, from the mid 1920s onwards the importance of his other work was acknowledged, and he was honoured for it and the Soviet state provided financial backing for his research.
Tsiolkovsky died in Kaluga on 19 September 1935 after undergoing an operation for stomach cancer. He gave his life's work to the Soviet state.
Legacy
Although many called his ideas impractical, Tsiolkovsky influenced later rocket scientists throughout Europe. Leading Soviet rocket-engine designer Valentin Glushko and rocket designer Sergey Korolev studied Tsiolkovsky's works as youths, and both sought to turn Tsiolkovsky's theories into reality. In particular, Korolev saw traveling to Mars as the more important priority until in 1964 he decided to compete with the American Project Apollo for the Moon.
Tsiolkovsky wrote a book called The Will of the Universe. The Unknown Intelligence in 1928 in which he had a theory of panpsychism. He believed humans would eventually colonize the Milky Way galaxy. His thought preceded the Space Age by several decades, and some of what he foresaw in his imagination has come into being since his death.
In 1989, Tsiolkovsky was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.
Images for kids
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Konstantin Tsiolkovsky with his steel dirigibles in his garden, 1913
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The cover of the book The Will of the Universe. The Unknown Intelligence by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, 1928, considered to be a work of Cosmist philosophy.
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Draft first space ship by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
See also
In Spanish: Konstantín Tsiolkovski para niños
