A VERY EARLY SPACE PIONEER
by Stan Griffin

Even before two young men from Ohio had successfully flown their heavier-than-air craft, the "Wright Flyer," a young hearing-impaired man in Russia was already thinking about traveling to outer space. This man said, "The earth is the cradle of the mind, but one does not live in a cradle forever."

He died 20 years before the early successes of the Soviet space program that was influenced and inspired by him: the "Sputniks," Laika, the space dog, and Yuri Gagarin, first human to leave the planet.

When our country joined in the "space race," we too depended on the ideas of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the man who first stated the correct theory of rocket power, and made the space age possible. Known as "the father of human spaceflight," he wrote over 500 books and scientific papers. He built wind tunnels to test the merits of various aircraft designs, was first to present the idea of the multistage rocket, worked out theoretical aspects of rocket propulsion and interplanetary flight, and described in his writings the use of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuels "His greatest love was imagining humanity’s limitless future in outer space."

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was born in Russia, in the village of Izhevskoye, the province of Ryazan, on September 17, 1857. His father was a Polish official of noble birth who had emigrated to Russia. His mother was Russian.. He had 17 brothers and sisters.

At age 10, a severe case of scarlet fever took away his hearing. This condition had a great influence on his life. Since he couldn’t attend school, he began to educate himself at home. Studying alone he became withdrawn and lonely. However, he said later that something positive came from this part of his childhood: he worked very hard to prove to himself (and to others) that, even with his disability, he was better and cleverer than any of his peers.

Konstantin developed an interest in math and physics, reading every book in his father’s library. His family was impressed at his progress so they sent him to Moscow in 1873 where he was tutored by an eccentric philosopher, Nikolai Fedorovitch Fedorov. Konstantin attended lectures with an ear trumpet to help him hear. As a teenager, he was inspired by Jules Verne’s novels and began to dream of the possibility of space flight, even making sketches of space vehicles.

Konstantin moved back to his father’s home in 1876. The elder Tsiolkovsky wanted his son to have financial independence so he encouraged him to take an exam for his Teaching Certificate. He passed it easily and was offered a math position in Borovsk, 60 miles from Moscow. While he was employed there, this teacher-scientist began research on: (1) air balloon building; (2) life in free space; (3) aerodynamics (interaction of moving objects with the atmosphere); (4) philosophy; (5) life on other planets; and (6) use of a wind tunnel–he built the first one in Russia.

During his stay in Borovsk (1880-1892), Konstantin married the daughter of a local preacher, Barbara E. Sokolova. They had five children: three daughters and two sons. He was invited into the Russian Physico-Chemical Society.

In 1892 a promotion sent him to Kaluga where he lived until his death. He spent out-of-school hours working on theories of space flight and interplanetary travel. He wrote "Dreams of Earth and Sky" in 1895. The next year he wrote "Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices." (rocket engines in space) However, for many years he received little support or recognition. Working alone with meager funds, he hadn’t been able to confirm his theories with actual experiments.

A series of tragedies struck Tsiolkovsky while he was in Kaluga. In 1902, one of his sons committed suicide. In 1908 a flooded Oka River swept away much of his research. And in 1911 one of his daughters was arrested for revolutionary activity. From 1904-1935 the family lived in a house that is now part of the museum later built in his honor.

After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Tsiolkovsky finally got government backing for his work. In 1918 he was granted admission to the Soviet Academy of Science. Two years later, he received a government pension in recognition of his service to the nation.

Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky died in Kaluga on September 19, 1935 at the age of 78. He was given a State Funeral by the Soviet government and was buried in the old Kaluga Cemetery, not far from the museum that honors his life and work.

Tsiolkovsky never built a working rocket himself, but he influenced many Russian engineers and designers who " ... made his visionary concepts reality ..." Among them was Sergey Korolev who became "Chief Designer" of the Soviet Space program and the driving force behind the country’s space successes in the 1950s.

Three men are generally credited with being the most prominent pioneers of rocketry and spaceflight theory. One was an American, Robert H. Goddard, and one was a German, Hermann Oberth. Both of these men made substantial contributions to science, but they came on the scene after Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had already begun seriously thinking about leaving "the cradle of the mind"–Earth!