The Rocket from East to West

    The concept of the rocket, or rather the mechanism behind the idea of propelling an object into the air, has been around for well over two thousand years. However, it wasn’t until the discovery of the reaction principle, which was the key to space travel

    and so represents one of the great milestones in the history of scientific thought, that rocket technology was able to develop. Not only did it slove a problem that had intrigued man for ages, but, more importantly, it literally opened the door to exploration of the universe.

    An intellectual breakthrough, brilliant though it may be , does not automatically ensure that the transition is made from theory to practice.Despite the fact that rockets had been used sporadically for several hundred years, they remained a relatively minor artifact of civilization until the twentieth century. Prodigious efforts, accelerated during two world wars, were required before the technology of primitive rocketry could be translated into the twentieth century. Prodigious efforts, accelerated during two world wars, were required before the technology of primitive rocketry could be translated into the reality of sophisticated astronauts It is strange that the rocket was generally ignored by writers of fiction transport their heroes to mysterious realms beyond the earth,even though it had been commonly used in fireworks displays in China since the thirteenth century.The reason is that nobody associated the reaction principle with the idea of traveling through space to a neighboring world.

    A simple analogy can help us to understand hoe a rocket operates. It is much like a machine gun mounted on the rear of a boat. In reaction to the backward discharge of bullets, the gun, and hence the boat, move forwards.A rocket motor’s bullet are

    minute,high-speed particles produced by burning propellants in a suitable chamber. The reaction to the ejection of these small particles causes the rocket to move forwards.There is evidence that the reaction principle was applied practically well before the rocket was invented.In his noctes atticae or greek nights, Aulus Gellius describes the pigeon of Archytas, an invention dating back to about

    360BC.Cylindrical in shape,made of wood, and small exhaust ports at either end. The reaction to the discharging steam provided the bird with motive power. ns

    The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of black powder.Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with its discovery.They base their belief on studies of chinese writings or on the notebooks of early Europeans who settled in or made long visits to china to study its history and civilization.It is probable that, aome time in the tenth century, black power was first compounded from his basic ingredients of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur.But this does not mean that it was not immediately used to propel rocket.By the thirteenth century.powder-propelled fire arrows had become rather common.The Chinese relied on this type of technological development to produce incendiary projectiles of many sorts, explosive grenades and possibly cannons to repel their enemies.One such weapon was the basket of fire or ,as directly translated from chinese, the arrows like flying leopards’.The 0.7 metre-long

    arrows,each with along tube of gunpowder attached near the point of each arrow,could be fired from a long, octageonal-shaped basket at the same time and had a range of 400 paces.Another weapon was the arrow as a flying sabre,which could be fire form crossbows.The rocket placed in a similar position to other rocket-propelled arrows, was designed to increase the range.A small iron weight was attached to the

    1.5meters bamboo.shaft,jest below the feathers, to increase the arrow’stability by moving the gravity to apostion below the rocket.At a similar time,the Arabs had developed the egg which moves and burns.This egg was apparently full of gunpowder and stabilised by a1.5m tail.It was fired using two rockets attached to either side of this tail.

     It was not until the eighteenth century that Europe became seriously interested in the possibilities of using the rocket itself as weapon of war and not just to propel other weapons. Prior to this,rockets were used only in pyrotechnic displays. The incentive for the more aggressive use of rockets came not from within European continent but from far-away India,whose leaders had built up a corps of rocketeers and use rockets successful against the British in the late eighteenth century.The India rockets used against the British were described by a British Captain serving in India as an iron envelpoe about 200 millimetres long and 40 millimetres in diameter with sharp point at the top and a 3-mlong bamboo guiding stick.In the rockets.The british rocket differed from the indian version in that was completely encased in stout, iron cylinder ,terminating in a conacal head,measuing one metre in diameter and having astick almost five meters long and constructed in such adeveloped arocke, comlete with its own launcher, to use against the Mexicans in the mid-nineteenth century.A long cylindrical tube was propped up bytow sticks and lit from the other end. However, the results were sometimes not that impressive as the behaviour of the rockets in flight was less than predicable.

    Since then, there have been huge development in rocket technology, often with devastating results in the forum of war. Nevertheless, the moder day space programs owe their success to the humble beginning of those in previous centuries who developed the foundations of reaction principle.Who knows what it will be like in the future?