Rocket pioneer

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As rocket pioneer is called engineers , experimental scientists or self-taught , the significant progress in the construction of solid or liquid rocket could achieve.

Some basic researchers are also included, insofar as their work has promoted the concrete development of rockets for space travel or the military .

The latter group mainly includes:

  • Konstantin Ziolkowski (1857–1935, Russia ). In 1898 the teacher formulated the basic mathematical principles of rocket propulsion and the basic rocket equation . With the step rocket, however, Oberth just got ahead of him.
  • Hermann Oberth (1894–1989, Transylvania and Germany). The basic equation of rocket technology comes from him (1923); his book “The rocket for planetary spaces” promoted the subject tremendously (see also Max Valier ). Later he published the concept of the stage rocket and the first ideas for space stations . In 1929, his “cone nozzle” inspired the student Wernher von Braun to take up his profession.

From the first experimenters are mentioned:

  • Konstantin Iwanowitsch Konstantinow (1818–1871), who developed missile systems for the Imperial Russian Army .
  • Nikolai Ivanovich Tichomirow (1860–1930), who initiated the development of the Katyusha rocket launcher through his diverse investigations .
  • Robert Goddard (1882–1945, USA ), who developed small rocket engines from around 1910 onwards. In 1926 he succeeded in launching the first liquid rocket (50 meters in 2.5 seconds). He owned 214 rocket patents and proved that rockets also develop thrust in a vacuum , which is what makes space travel possible.
  • Max Valier (1895–1930, South Tyrol and Berlin). Even before Goddard, the writer and astronomer dared to experiment with liquid fuels and built a. a. a rocket car (now the Deutsches Museum ). A metal splinter killed the 35-year-old in an engine explosion in the laboratory - the first person to be killed in space travel.
  • Walter Hohmann (1880–1945, Germany). He calculated energy-saving space orbits to the moon and the neighboring planets - named Hohmann orbits after him. He also calculated how big and how heavy a rocket must be that consumes the least fuel on orbits orbits the sun.
  • Johannes Winkler (1897–1947, Dresden ): his liquid rocket rose 100 meters in 1931 and described an arc of 200 meters. A sound film about it was shown in the newsreel . The HW2 large rocket with a better mass ratio than the later legendary Braun'sche V2 was destroyed when it took off.
  • Wernher von Braun (1912–1977, Germany and USA) From Peenemünde in 1934 and the A4 (the model for many Russian and US rockets) to the Saturn V of the moon landings 1969–1972, he shaped four decades of space travel.
  • Sergei Pavlovich Koroljow (1907–1966, Soviet Union) - chief designer of the Soviet space program.
  • Kurt Heinrich Debus (1908–1983 Germany and USA)
  • Reinhold Tiling (1893-1933, Germany). From 1928 he constructed solid rockets, with which wings or propellers, which had previously served as tail units and with which the rockets could slide safely to the ground, unfolded after the high flight. In 1933, Tiling was killed in an explosion while making rocket fuel.