- History of spaceflight
The realistic proposal of
spaceflight goes back toKonstantin Tsiolkovsky . His most famous work, " _ru. Исследование мировых пространств реактивными приборами" ("The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices"), was published in 1903, but this theoretical work was not widely influential outside of Russia.Spaceflight became an engineering possibility with the work of
Robert H. Goddard 's publication in 1919 of his paper 'A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes'; where his application of thede Laval nozzle toliquid fuel rocket s gave sufficient power that interplanetary travel became possible. This paper was highly influential onHermann Oberth andWernher Von Braun , later key players in spaceflight.The first rocket to reach space was a prototype of the German
V-2 Rocket , on a test flight onOctober 3 ,1942 , although sub-orbital flight is not considered a spaceflight in Russia. OnOctober 4 ,1957 , theSoviet Union launchedSputnik 1 , which became the first artificialsatellite to orbit theEarth . The firsthuman spaceflight wasVostok 1 onApril 12 ,1961 , aboard which Soviet cosmonautYuri Gagarin made one orbit around the Earth.Rockets remain the only currently practical means of reaching space. Other
non-rocket spacelaunch technologies such asscramjet s still fall far short of orbital speed.ee also
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Timeline of spaceflight
*Aviation history
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