Approaching Modernity

Approaching Modernity

...........The law of gravity that was described by Isaac Newton is a fundamental property of the natural universe; described simply, it is the attractive property of matter. It is the factor that bound man to the Earth for millions of years. Without an intimate comprehension of this force, there would be no conceivable way to overcome its influence and project any object beyond its Earth’s pull or into orbit. The greatest obstacle for the human race to overcome previously in the quest for otherworldly travel had been gaining the necessary wisdom to recognize the natural world’s attributes and conditions in order to deduce what would be necessary to escape the earth. Thanks to Newton and his predecessors, this objective was fulfilled. The next great stumbling block in the reach for the stars was to be the refinement of technologies necessary to escape the Earth’s gravity and the heightening of interest in pursuing such a scheme. Then, eventually to assemble an institution capable of organizing enough manpower, resource and political support for the actuation this extraordinary objective.

The Refinement of Rocketry

...........The apparatus that was to eventually allow space travel was one not suspected by science until the turn of the twentieth century; it was however, in development for centuries before it would be used to that end. The first known use of rockets in European history was in the battle of Liegnitz in 1241 AD, where they were probably used as incendiary weapon (Emme, 66). These fire arrows were no doubt crude devices, which had little utility as a weapon for an epic period due to their inferiority to other conventional weapons such as cannons and guns. The rocket did have some advantages; with its lack of recoil and simpler design, it was given some attention by resourceful military designers. Around the year 1420 a sketchbook was compiled by the Italian military engineer Joanes DeFontana which outlined several military rockets that came into limited use; and later, in 1650, a historically significant publication by Kosmierz Siemienowicz contained hundreds of illustrations and ideas for different types of rockets. This volume titled Artis Magne Artilleris was influential on future innovations due to its wide circulation (Emme, 67). Years after that, Newtons theories of gravity and inertia would provide the first scientific basis for the properties of rockets; but their practical use would remain limited for greater than a century to follow.

This page of illustration by Kosmierz Siemienkowicz depicts several advanced rocket designs. Its wide circulation doubtless influenced future innovations.

Plumes of smoke rose over the battle- fields of the Revolutionary War, often incited by incendiary rocket-propelled bombs.

The Mexican American War of 1846-48 saw the employment of even more sophisticated and powerful rockets, refined to impart greater accuracy and distance than ever before.

...........Rockets had not been given significant attention by the aeronautic or space sciences until fairly recently, but they had been steadily gaining in influence and sophistication since their implementation in the early nineteenth century Napoleonic wars. In response to devastating incursions by rocket-firing Indian troops against British cavalry in the late 1700’s, parliament member Colonel William Congreve developed a highly effective, lightweight and mobile incendiary rocket that would be used throughout the Napoleonic wars and during the American Revolution (Emme, 71). These early demonstrations of the practical uses of rockets prompted further studies in aerodynamics and thrust control, some of the same studies that were to later be applied to spacecraft in a much more complex way. One of the best evidences of the continual refinement of these rockets was the work of William Hale in 1846, who imparted greater accuracy to the Congreve rockets by adding curved vanes to the shells. These rockets were effective enough to be adopted as standard ordnance by the U.S. army, which fired thousands of them in the Mexican-American War (Emme, 72). This increasingly popular system of propulsion however was overshadowed by other developments in weaponry, and was only first recognized as a means of transport by an aspiring astronomical savant around the end of the 1800’s. The interest in space travel had been steadily increasing, and was undeniably present by this time in history, but the practicality of it was limited by the lack of attention to these fantastic devices.