Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

• 1. The Boy Who Could Not Hear

  ›

  Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was born in 1857 in the Russian Empire. His father, Makary Edward Erazm Ciołkowski, worked as a forester and later as a teacher. The family lived in Spassky District of Ryazan Oblast. At age nine, Konstantin contracted scarlet fever. This illness left him completely deaf for the rest of his life. He could not attend elementary schools because of this hearing problem. His mother Maria Ivanovna Yumasheva died when he was thirteen years old. A reclusive home-schooled child, he spent much time reading books alone. He became deeply interested in mathematics and physics during these lonely years. By his teenage years, he began to contemplate the possibility of space travel.

• 2. Building Wings In Silence

  ›

  Tsiolkovsky spent three years attending a Moscow library where Nikolai Fyodorov worked. He moved to Borovsk near Moscow after passing a teacher's exam at age nineteen. His father brought him back home from Moscow because he feared his son would starve while studying too hard. In 1892, he transferred to a new teaching post in Kaluga. There he continued to experiment with flight. He developed the first aerodynamics laboratory in Russia inside his own apartment. In 1897, he built the first Russian wind tunnel with an open test section. He used it to determine drag coefficients for spheres, flat plates, cylinders, and cones. The Russian Physico-Chemical Society provided no financial support for this project. He paid for it largely out of his own pocket. In 1900, he made a survey using models of simple shapes. He described airflow around bodies of different geometric shapes. His work influenced Russian scientist Nikolay Zhukovsky later on.

• 3. The Equation Of Flight

  ›

  Starting in 1896, Tsiolkovsky systematically studied the theory of motion of rocket apparatus. Thoughts on the use of the rocket principle in the cosmos were expressed by him as early as 1883. A rigorous theory of rocket propulsion was developed in 1896. He derived a formula which he called the "formula of aviation". This equation established the relationship between change in speed, exhaust velocity, and mass ratios. On the 10th of May 1897, he recorded the date after writing out this equation. In the same year, the formula for the motion of a body of variable mass was published in a thesis by I. V. Meshchersky. His most important work appeared in May 1903 under the title Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices. He calculated that horizontal speed required for minimal orbit around Earth is 8,000 meters per second. This could be achieved by means of a multistage rocket fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The article suggested for the first time that a rocket could perform space flight. The outward appearance of his spacecraft design from 1903 became a basis for modern spaceship design.

• 4. The Cosmic Destiny

  ›

  Tsiolkovsky championed the idea of diversity of life in the universe. He wrote a book called The Will of the Universe: The Unknown Intelligence in 1928. In it he propounded a philosophy of panpsychism. He believed humans would eventually colonize the Milky Way galaxy. His thought preceded the Space Age by several decades. Some of what he foresaw has come into being since his death. In a letter written in 1911 he indicated his belief that "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever." He did not believe in traditional religious cosmology. Instead he believed in a cosmic being that governed humans as marionettes or mechanical puppets. He adhered to a mechanical view of the universe. He believed this would be controlled through human science and industry over millennia. In a short article in 1933, he explicitly formulated what was later known as the Fermi paradox. He wrote works on ethics espousing negative utilitarianism.

• 5. Recognition From A New State

  ›

  After the October Revolution, the Cheka jailed him in Lubyanka prison for several weeks. Still Tsiolkovsky supported the Bolshevik Revolution. 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 age sixty-three. In 1921, he received a lifetime pension. From mid-1920s onwards, he was honored for his pioneering work. The Soviet state provided financial backing for his research. He was initially popularized in Soviet Russia in 1931, 1932 by writers Yakov Perelman and Nikolai Rynin. Tsiolkovsky died in Kaluga on the 19th of September 1935 after an operation for stomach cancer. He bequeathed his life's work to the Soviet state. Leading Soviet rocket-engine designer Valentin Glushko studied Tsiolkovsky's works as a youth. Rocket designer Sergey Korolev also studied these works before seeking to turn theories into reality. Wernher von Braun found German translations of books by Tsiolkovsky with comments and notes on almost every page.