The History of Rocketry

[Hyperion5]

   On August 14th, 2016, SpaceX launched a large rocket called the Falcon 9 FT, which flung an artificial satellite called JCSat-16 into a geosynchronous transfer orbit.  Perhaps most spectacularly, the launch vehicle’s core stage managed an accurate landing down range on an autonomous barge.  It was just the latest in a series of such landings, which presage the reuse of stages.  Should SpaceX’s reuse continually improve, it could lead to a new commercial space era and even, perhaps most optimistically, to the colonization of Mars.  If this event shows mankind’s use of rocketry at its best, then the launch of a North Korean ballistic missile on August 25th, 2016 would surely show rocketry at its worst (http://www.voanews.com/a/security-council-mute-again-north-korea-missile-launch/3482373.html). 

   The North Koreans had launched yet another ballistic missile, leading to international condemnation, particularly from Japan, which dubbed the launch a threat to its national security.  When interviewed by Voice of America, Charles Armstrong, a Korean studies professor at Columbia University in New York, said the uptick in launches was due to the adoption of “[Resolution] 2270, then the THAAD deployment and then, generally, the North Koreans showing they can get away with it.”  THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) is an American anti-missile system which uses interceptor missiles (ie.guided rockets) to destroy enemy ballistic missiles and any warheads (including nuclear) in flight.    Given the extensive range of its radar and missile interception capability, it has the potential to drastically alter the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula, which puts both North Korea and its ally China on edge.  THAAD’s deployment however was in turn caused by North Korean ballistic missile & nuclear bomb testing.  This back-and-forth of offensive versus defensive rocket technology shows just how closely entwined rocket technology has become with issues of national security and warfare.  Although many on this site understand that rocketry has become integral to the lives of almost everyone on Earth, the ordinary person may not realize it.  But how did rocketry become so central to our lives?  To understand how this came about, we must start at the beginning of rocket history and follow its advances and effects. 

Early Rocketry (1045-1779)

Unlike with heavier than air aircraft, we don’t know who invented and launched the world’s very first rocket.  What we do know is that the founding technology behind all early rocketry, gunpowder, was invented in 1st century Han Dynasty China.   The Chinese quickly discovered the entertainment value to be had in producing firecrackers.  By 600 the Chinese discovered that firecrackers could also be propelled by gunpowder, and the world’s first fireworks were created.  While working on the same principles as modern rockets, rockets ironically did not evolve from fireworks.  Instead they evolved from flaming arrows, which Chinese records indicate were first used in battle in 994.  In the decades that followed gunpowder was added to provide a more potent punch, but eventually someone discovered they could be used to propel the arrow.  By 1045, a Chinese scholar named Tseng Kung-Liang described launching “fire arrows” not by bows, but by gunpowder filled tubes.  These first true rockets were launched in salvos of as many as a thousand from arrays of cylinders or boxes and flew as far as 300 meters (1000 feet).  These launchers are the ancient ancestors of today’s potent multiple launch rocket system artillery.  However despite its role as mass impact artillery, rocketry was not recorded in warfare until the 1232 battle of Kai-Keng, when the Chinese repulsed the Mongols (temporarily) by use of massed rocket artillery.
 
   The Mongols soon adapted the weapon and created an improved version featuring attached primitive grenades.  It was first used during the siege of the Chinese city of Kai-fung-fu.  By 1258 they were using more potent “fire arrows” during the siege of the Arab city of Baghdad.  However by the end of the 1200s the technology had spread to Japan, Java, India, Korea and the Middle East and was used against the Mongols as well.  In 1285 the Arabs are recorded using these “fire arrows” against French troops during the 7th Crusade.  Up until this point these weapons were referred to as “fire arrows”, there being no better term for them.  In 1379 an Italian named Muratori solved this conundrum by coining the word "rochetta", which was later translated into English as “rocket”.  Rocketry continued its slow improvement almost purely as a weapon of war during this period.  The lone exception to rocket development involving warfare is found in a Chinese folk tale by an official named Wan Hu in ~1500.  He was enamored with the idea of a rocket carrying a human to great heights, despite the lack of a working parachute at the time.  Wan Hu supposedly strapped himself to a chair, attached it to two stakes lined with 47 rockets, and then had the rockets lit simultaneously.  The American TV show Mythbusters would much later spectacularly demonstrate the problems that resulted:
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Not too surprisingly Wan Hu was not reported as having survived his attempt at creating the world’s first carrier rocket (if it indeed happened). 

   This period also saw the invention of the multi-stage rocket, or at least the idea of it.  The story of how the multi-stage rocket was invented keeps changing, mainly due to discovery of old manuscripts.  For centuries, Polish-Lithuanian nobleman Kazimierz Siemenowicz was credited with being the first to propose a multi-stage rocket via his 1650 publication of “Artis Magnae Artilleriae Pars Prima” ("Great Art of Artillery, Part One").  However new manuscripts show that the first man to propose such rockets was Austrian Konrad Haas, who wrote a treatise on rocketry sometime after his appointment as Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I’s Zeugwart (Arsenal Master) in 1551.  His work involved theorizing on multi-stage rocket motion, different liquid fuel mixture ratios, delta shaped fins and even bell shaped nozzles.  It inspired a German, Johann Schmidlap, to reportedly test the world’s first multi-stage rocket in 1590.  Unfortunately even if true, Schmidlap’s invention died with him and would not be seen again until 1855. 

The first war that rockets are said to have decisively altered the outcome of was the Imjin War of 1592-1598, when two-wheeled carts called Hwachas carrying hundreds of small rockets were used by the Koreans in massive volleys against the invading Japanese.  Although the Singijeon rocket arrows they fired were small and inaccurate, their massed use and 450 meter range (490 yards) made them especially potent against massed infantry and enemy ships. The potency of the Hwacha was demonstrated by the Mythbusters: . 
The Imjin War was to be rocketry’s high point for several centuries, as improvement in other gunpowder weapons like cannons and guns made them far more effective than any inaccurate rocket artillery.  Yet even as they faded back into use solely for fireworks, important advances were made. 

Not long afterwards Sir Isaac Newton began to establish the science behind rocketry in 1679 when he published "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", particularly through his Third Law of Motion.  This law states that, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, which has has been a guiding principle of rocketry ever since.  In addition to his laws of physics making rocketry into more of a science, Newton theorized that if an object were fired fast and high enough, it would achieve an orbit around the Earth and not fall back to ground.  It was a bold theory for a time some 278 years prior to the launch of Sputnik into orbit.  Perhaps not surprisingly, considering the tiny rockets of his era, no one connected the use of rocketry with the possibility of achieving orbit.  Following Newton however rocket experimentation began to grow, as did the rockets that European experimenters were creating, with some growing to as large as 45 kg. 

   The first seven centuries of rocketry saw the technology emerge from adapting a technology for entertainment to the needs for war in China.  However it took two centuries for it to be used in battle, and it took the Mongol conquests to spread the technology worldwide.  It saw limited progress for over seven centuries, but it did substantially alter the arcs of Japanese and Korean history via its impact on warfare.  Unfortunately for rocketry’s future, the accuracy of rockets in 1745 was little different than it had been 700 years prior, even though the range and punch of rockets had improved.  Due to this relative lack of progress, its battlefield impact soon faded and rocketry ended the era mostly as a means of entertainment, though the discovery of Newtonian physics had improved its science.  However it was clear a number of things were holding rocketry back, from the era’s crude metallurgy, near total lack of knowledge about chemistry and minimal knowledge of physics.

Industrial Era Rocketry (1780-1902)

   One might expect that the next great leap in rocketry would come in Europe, but instead it came from southern India.  Hyder Ali, formerly a commander of a small contingent of 50 rocketeers for the Nawab of Arcot, had seized the throne of the Kingdom of Mysore in 1761.  His son Tipu Sultan created an entire brigade of rocketeers using a new iron-cased rocket.  While the iron rockets were crude, the bursting strength of the iron casting was much higher than the earlier paper construction, thus allowing a greater internal pressure.  This in turn allowed more gunpowder to be packed in and greater thrust, pushing ranges as far as 2 km/1.2 miles. The rockets were first unleashed upon the British in the Second Anglo-Mysore War in 1780 to great effect, resulting in the last equal treaty between Great Britain and an Indian state before 1947.  Impressed by their effectiveness, a British artillery expert named William Congreve created the “Congreve rocket”, which was actually a family of rockets ranging from 3 to 300 pounds (1.36 to 136 kg) with ranges as great as 3,000 yards (2.1 miles/3.2 km).  It was the use of Congreve rockets during the bombardment of Fort McHenry in August 1814 that led directly to the phrase “by the rockets’ red glare” being included in the American national anthem. 

   At this time experimental interest in rocketry began to steadily mount, with an Italian named Claude Ruggieri experimenting with carrier rockets carrying animals and landing them via parachutes.  Unfortunately he got a bit overzealous and had to be stopped by French police from attaching a young child to his rockets in 1806. The next year Englishman Henry Trengrouse introduced the rescue rocket, which used the rocket to carry a small cord attached to either land or another ship so that the ship in distress could be pulled to safety.  It took until 1813 for the rocket equation to make its first appearance in William Moore’s "A Treatise on the Motion of Rockets".  The long sticks stabilizing rockets up to this point finally disappeared when Englishman William Hale invented the spin-stabilized rocket in 1840, which greatly improved rocket accuracy and drastically curbed rocket length.  The first use of Hale rockets was by the US Army in the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848.   

   British Lt. Colonel E.M. Boxer created the Boxer rocket in 1855, which was the world’s first confirmed multi-stage rocket, to help improve existing rescue rockets.  The year 1865 saw Jules Verne publish “From the Earth to the Moon”, a humorous science fiction book portraying the launch of a three-man spaceship called Columbia from a space gun in Florida and landing on the Moon via rockets.  Despite the humor the book was prescient, for 104 years later a very different three-man spaceship, also named Columbia, would be launched from Florida to the Moon.  Rocketry’s industrial golden age came crashing down in 1866, when new breech loading, rifled cannons fielded by Prussia proved more than a match for Austria’s rocket brigades in the Austro-Prussia War.  By the time Georges Méliès directed the first spaceflight film “Le Voyage dans la Lune” in 1902, rocketry had become a curiosity yet again.

   It is not hard to conclude that despite rocketry’s rise and fall in this era, it had advanced more in 120 years than it had in the previous 740 years.  Iron casings and spin stabilization solved many of the technology’s prior limits.  There was also massive progress in chemistry, metallurgy, physics and manufacturing thanks to advances of the Industrial Revolution.  Only a few of these advances were applied to rocketry compared to steam locomotives or firearms.  The effects of rocketry in this era were modest and mostly warfare related.  Perhaps the biggest things holding the technology back was its minimal financial backing by great powers and greater imagination in how it might be used. 

Early Modern Rocketry (1903-1938)   
   
   The first person to connect the exploration of outer space with rocketry was a Russian schoolteacher named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who in 1903 published "Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices".  In it and dozens of subsequent publications, Tsiolkovsky theorized on space travel, rocketry and even liquid propellants.  Originally unrecognized for his work in 1903, the second part to "Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices" published in 1911 made him internationally famous.  Tsiolkovsky made designs for rockets with steering thrusters, multi-stage booster rockets, space stations, airlocks, and even life-support systems for space colonies.  Unfortunately he had neither the funds nor the inclination to test his designs.  Although a recluse by nature, Tsiolkovsky’s work was widely studied and inspired rocket pioneers worldwide like Hermann Oberth, Robert Goddard, Wernher von Braun, Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko.  His work even helped Nikolay Zhukovsky, who founded the scientific fields of hydrodynamics and thermodynamics.  Rocketry however still remained under appreciated and especially under-funded.  Its financial turnaround began when it returned to the battlefield in World War I.  Incendiary rockets like the French Le Prieur rockets were used to down Zeppelins and barrage balloons while illumination and smoke rockets were used to lighten and obscure the battlefield.  One young rocket enthusiast, an ethnic German from Austria-Hungary named Hermann Oberth, even showed designs for a liquid rocket with a potential range of 290 km (180 miles) to the Prussian Minister of War, though the war ended before the design could be realized.  He would later get his doctorate from a Romanian university and published his dissertation, “Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen” ("By Rocket into Planetary Space"), which expanded on Tsiolkovsky’s ideas. 

   In 1924 the newly established USSR established the first state bodies concerned with rocketry.  Rocketry was a lesser concern in the US, which is why American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard had to carry on his rocket propulsion experiments with private funding.   On March 16th, 1926, Goddard launched the world’s first liquid-propelled rocket 12.5 meters (41 feet) into the air.  In Germany the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (the "Spaceflight Society") was established in 1927.  Oberth, Klaus Riedel and an 18 year old Wernher von Braun would fire Germany’s first liquid-fueled rocket engine in 1929.  A young Valentin Glushko started work on liquid propellant rockets the very next year.  Progress in liquid-fueled rockets would quicken, with Germany’s first liquid-fueled rocket coming the very next year.  The US Army would start six years of rocket testing at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland in 1932, which would later be helpful in the design of the bazooka.  1933 saw the USSR’s first liquid propellant rocket launch by a young engineering genius, Sergei Korolev.  The next year saw the Vfr’s rocket testing taken over by the German Army, now under Nazi leadership, with a Dr. Wernher von Braun selected as Technical Director.  By 1935 and 1936 respectively, the British and US Navy finally began to test rockets, although only the US Navy funded tests of liquid-fueled rockets. 

   While other nations were progressing in fits, Nazi Germany was progressing at an unprecedented pace.  Its first successful design was the A2, which was launched up to an altitude of 3.4 kilometers (2.1 miles) in 1934.  The A3 followed in 1936 and reached as high as 18 km (11.6 miles) and 12 km (7.5 miles) downrange, although its inertial guidance system’s problems stopped it from becoming a viable weapon.  With the A3 showing the promise of rockets as a weapon with unprecedented range and speed, work was authorized on the world’s first ballistic missile, the A4.  As a stepping stone to the A4, the A5, an A3 with an improved guidance system, was built and repeatedly tested starting in the fall of 1938.  While the Nazi rocketeers made rapid progress, sometimes even helped along by Germans asking technical questions of Robert Goddard, the USSR was enduring mass repression that saw its top rocket scientists falsely denounced and imprisoned.  This action, along with the relative lack of action on rocket development from other major nations would leave Nazi Germany in a firm lead when World War II broke out on September 1st, 1939. 

   Rocketry’s impact in these 35 years was arguably even less than influential than the preceding 123 years.  However Tsiolkovsky’s intellectual theorizing was the first to have connected rocketry with a means to go beyond our own planet.  It was this vision, along with steady technological and scientific progress in areas like metallurgy, fluid dynamics and radio that laid the groundwork for a later rocket revolution.  Rocketry entered this era as a minor interest, but by World War II’s beginning work on it had escalated and the world’s first ballistic missile was in development. 

World War II (1939-1945)

   Although the atomic bomb today is ranked as the most defining invention of the war, the Germans’ creation of the world’s first ballistic missile is ranked second.  Ironically the Germans got far less return on their work, spending an astounding 40 billion USD equivalent on the development of the militarily-ineffective V-1 & V-2, some 50% more than was spent on the much more effective Manhattan Project.  The Allies and the remaining Axis powers in contrast made varying levels of progress in rocketry, but their modest financial commitment meant that by war’s end German rocket scientists were some of the most sought-after prisoners of war for the Americans, British and Soviets. 

   While the Germans worked to finish the design and testing of the V-2’s components in the early war years, it created a variety of other rockets for war purposes.  The Nebelwerfer, a multiple rocket launch artillery system, was created after the German Army encountered the Russian Katyusha rocket barrages.  The Panzerfaust anti-tank rocket was similarly created via reverse-engineering captured US Army bazookas in 1943.   During the war, as the Germans lost air superiority over the Reich to the Allied air forces, they turned considerable effort to an entirely new kind of rocket, the surface-to-air missile, creating nine different designs, culminating in the impressive but ultimately too-late Wasserfall rocket.  Germany also designed nine air-to-surface missiles during the war, although few of these saw action, in sharp contrast to its guided bombs.  The Germans like the Americans did adapt their barrage rockets as air-to-air weapons, and even attempted to create the first “tow” missile guided by wire from the originating aircraft, although the design never left the drawing boards. 

   The Germans also developed the world’s first piloted rocket aircraft, the Me-163, which was designed to attack bomber formations at great speed before gliding back down to land.  It could hit a top speed of 885 km/h (550 mph) and achieve an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) just 3 minutes after takeoff.  In addition the Germans designed jet-assisted takeoff rockets thanks to von Braun’s group.   However, when it comes to rocketry, von Braun’s team at Peenemunde would remain infamous for their creation of the V-2 ballistic missile.  Its development was started in 1938 after sufficient progress with the A-3 missile was made.  By 1939 certain V-2 components were already ready for testing.  The sheer difficulty of the task before von Braun’s team can be discerned by the fact that despite having a budget larger than the Manhattan Project, the first test fired V-2 did not arrive till 1942.  At that time testing of the V-2 became an around the clock affair as the Nazis searched for a superweapon that would win the war. 

   Progress was rapid, with the first test launch (and crash) coming on June 13th, 1942, the second coming on August 16th, 1942, which despite being a “failure” saw the V-2 become the first rocket to exceed the speed of sound.  The 3rd flight on October 3rd, 1942 was a complete success, with the V-2 flying 194 km (120 miles) and reaching a then astounding 81 km (50 miles) altitude.  Impressed by its potential, Adolf Hitler ordered the V-2 to be put into mass production.  Following the bombing of Peenemunde by the Allies, production was moved to Mittelwerk in 1943, where slave labor was used in construction.  This decision was signed off by SS General Kammler as well as Wernher von Braun himself, a fact later kept from the public by the US government.  More than 6,000 V-2s were produced by war’s end, with over a thousand being launched against London.  The weapon, under developed and tested, was ultimately not reliable, cheap or built in enough numbers to change the course of the war.  Some would argue that given each V-2 cost as much as an advanced fighter plane, the weapons actually left the Germans with less fighting potential, although its potential was noted by all. 

   In addition to the V-2, the Germans worked on a number of other ballistic missile designs.  Most prominent of these designs was the Rheinbote, a four-stage solid fueled rocket that only massed 1678 kg (3700 lbs).  Fortunately for the Allies, this missile was rushed into production without a proper guidance system and only mounted a 40 kg (88 lb) warhead, making it at best a nuisance weapon.  Perhaps the most surprising of Germany’s rocket firsts during the war was its experiments with submarine-launched missiles.  It mounted sealed barrage rockets on a special deck mounted steel firing rack and fired the rockets via a special ignition system.  The attempts were abandoned after the racks were found to hinder submarine maneuverability, though the attempt is impressive in that it preceded non-German submarine launched missiles by a decade.  In addition to attempting to create wire-guided air-to-air missiles, Germany also designed the first wire-guided anti-tank missile, the X-7, which would have been far more effective than the Panzerfaust and Bazooka on the battlefield.
 
   In sharp contrast to the Germans, the Soviet advances in rocketry were much more limited.  Its Katyusha solid rocket multiple launch artillery system launched rockets that massed under 50 kg and had a 5 km (3 mile) range.  This was only a 50% greater range of the Mysorean rockets launched at the British in 1780.  The Russians also employed air-to-surface rockets on aircraft as well as rocket bombs early in the war.  Their greatest contribution to rocketry during the war may not have been technical but rather the release of Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko from prison.  The two Soviet rocket pioneers had been falsely denounced for sabotage and would later “confess” under torture.   Late in the war the two men would be assigned the task of capturing as much of the German V-2 program as possible. 

   Japanese advances in wartime rocketry were not much different from that of the Soviets.  Like the US, the Japanese designed a number of tube-launched barrage rockets for use as surface-to-surface and air-to-surface weapons.  They also designed a rocket Kamikaze plane, the Okha, which could get to a top speed of 970 km/h (600 mph) but had to then glide to its target at far slower speeds.  Unsurprisingly it was not an effective weapon.  The Japanese also created small close support rockets similar to the US Bazooka and the German Panzerfaust for use against infantry, fortified positions and enemy tanks. 

   The British did not advance in rocketry nearly as much as the Germans but did pioneer the use of massed barrage rocket attacks with RAF Typhoon squadrons against German army divisions, some of which were reported to have been wiped out by the lethality of the attacks.  In addition the British attempted to defend the home isles with modified parachute carrying barrage rockets.  Once fired these rockets would string out a wire which it was hoped would snag on attacking German aircraft.  Once snagged the rocket would deploy a parachute, which would help to crash the plane.  A different tack was attempted against Kamikaze attacks in the Pacific.  A 336 kg (740 lb) solid rocket called the Stooge would be fired from a ramp launcher by four solid-fueled booster rockets.  Once airborne it would then be radio-guided towards its target up to 13 km (8 miles) away. 

   The US was the most advanced of Germany’s rocket rivals by the war’s end, thanks in part to the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (renamed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1944).  Several of GALCIT’s most prominent members formed the world’s first rocketry firm, Aerojet, in 1943.  It was formed to help the US jet-assisted takeoff rockets much like those Germany had developed.  Also like Germany, the US was already designing air-to-air missiles by war’s end, although unlike Germany the work was low priority and its first, the Gorgon, was derived from JATO rockets.  Like the British and Germans, Americas also developed radio-guided surface-to-air missiles, including the 908 kg (2,000 lb) two-stage solid and liquid-fueled Lark and the 549 kg (1210 lb) two-stage solid fueled Little Joe.  Of the two, only the Lark would see flight, and only then in 1950.  Far more work was put into dedicated air-to-surface missiles, mainly because the threat of air attack against the US mainland was so small.  Most of these were derived from barrage rockets, like the FFAR, HVAR and the Tiny Tim.  A more advanced radar-guided designed, the “Bat”, which could carry a 454 kg (1000 lb) payload, flew at speeds up to 484 km/h (300 mph).  One such missile was reported to have sunk a Japanese submarine at a distance of 32.25 km (20 miles).  America’s most immediate impact on ground warfare was the US Bazooka, which was the first anti-tank missile.  It had an effective range against tanks of ~180 m (200 yards), and an effective range against bunkers and fortified positions of 640 m (700 yards).  It was widely used and considered effective enough that it was almost immediately reverse-engineered by Germany.  The US did not however attempt to develop a ballistic missile during the war. 

   World War II saw rocketry change from a minor support weapon to one of the major support weapons.  It’s a war that saw the first ballistic missile, the first anti-tank missile, the first designs of guided air-to-air missiles, the first guided surface-to-air missiles, the first guided air-to-surface missiles, the first attempts to launch missiles from submarines, the reintroduction of multiple launch rocket systems into armies, and the first design concepts of intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.  While rockets had undoubtedly sped up the war by eating up so much of Germany’s resources while delivering little strategic effect, they would soon become far more important.  Although America’s Operation Paperclip captured most of the very best German rocket scientists, the British and the Soviets captured others, and unlike the Americans, the Soviets were far more convinced that rocket-delivered atomic warheads were the way forward.  The age of the rocket by war’s end had finally arrived.
 
Early Cold War (1946-1956)

   Amongst the first things that the US did after the war was transport 341 train carloads worth of V-2 materials and 12.7 tonnes (14 tons) of technical documents back to the US.  The US Army also offered a contract to 127 German rocket scientists.  Although they would have to leave their families behind and leave Germany for the US, all 127 accepted the offer and were duly transported back to the US via Operation Paperclip.  This was not without some controversy; particularly given their leader, Wernher von Braun, had once been an officer in the Nazi SS.  The British and French also recruited some German rocket scientists, with the British managing to launch two V-2s with their help in Operation Backfire.  Neither nation however had the resources necessary to sustain ballistic missile programs so soon after the war. 

   By 1946 both the US and USSR were making progress, with the US V-2 research program launching a V-2 by April 16th, 1946.  In 1947 JPL introduced a smaller but more reliable ballistic missile called the Aerobee.  It was in this year that the US government made the near-fatal error to prioritize winged cruise missiles like the Regulus I, Matador and Snark over ballistic missiles.  Despite this de-prioritization, V-2s were soon modified and topped with a Corporal second stage to create the Bumper-WAC (Without Any Control) series of rockets, which placed the first man-made object in space (but not orbit) on February 24th, 1949.  Naval tests with V-2s in Operation Pushover convinced the US Navy that only solid-fueled rockets would be safe enough to fire at sea.  The same year the US Army moved its ballistic missile testing program to Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, while the following year testing moved from White Sands, New Mexico to Cape Canaveral, Florida, as it offered a far greater flight range.  It was the Korean War in 1950 that indirectly started the US space program, as the Army asked its rocket team to design a ballistic missile with a range of 805 km (500 miles).  This missile, named the Redstone in 1952, was evolved from the V-2 and first flew in 1953.  The Air Force would issue a specification for a ballistic missile of its own capable of delivering a nuclear warhead onto the USSR in 1951, which would lead to the Atlas rocket. 

   Four critical events happened in 1953:  the Atlas rocket was given Priority 1A by the Air Force, North American Aviation’s Rocketdyne division was given a contract to develop a liquid rocket engine with more than 4.45 MN (1 million lb-ft), America’s nuclear physicists told the military that lighter thermonuclear weapons would be possible no later than 1965, and the US created the world’s first nuclear warhead-tipped rocket, MGR-1 “Honest John”.  Soviet progress in ballistic missile technology in combination with this development suddenly became very concerning.  In 1954, this fear led to the requirement for an intermediate range 2420 km (1500 mile) ballistic missile called the Thor.   The even more capable Jupiter missile was the very next year.  However, since no one branch of the armed forces had exclusive control over missile development, several different rockets were developed by the various branches.   The competition was even present with regards to cruise missiles, as the first nuclear warhead-tipped Regulus missiles were put into operation by two converted WWII-era submarines and 3 specially designed cruise missile subs.  Although they were limited by the Regulus’ 930 km (500 nm) range and need to surface for firing, they provided the US with the first truly mobile nuclear tipped missile launch platform. 

The US committed to additional Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in 1955, with the Atlas and Titan being simultaneously developed by the US Air Force.  The two stage Titan I was considered the backup to the stage and a half Atlas, and like the Jupiter, Atlas & Thor used liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants.  The Air Force also embarked on creating a storable ICBM using hypergolic propellants called the Titan II.  By March 1956 the US Navy had gained permission to start its own missile program, which was eventually to lead to the solid fuel Polaris ICBM.   It was at this time that von Braun’s ABMA team was prevented from launching a satellite with their Jupiter-C rocket (a Redstone rocket with 2 additional solid fuel upper stages).  The year also saw the requirements for the first of the Saturn heavy-lift rocket family being drafted.  Only a year later the Americans would be humiliated when their “inferior” Communist rival launched the first satellite into orbit.  The only rocketry-related breakthrough the US did have in 1957 was the launching of the USS Coontz, the first guided missile destroyer.

   In contrast to the American government, the Soviet government led by Stalin almost immediately identified rockets as the quickest and deadliest way to transport nuclear weaponry.    Although the Americans had snatched most of the key engineers, technical drawings and 341 carloads of V-2s and V-2 parts, the Soviets did come into possession of the V-2 factory at Nordhausen.  With the help of the remaining German rocket engineers in the area, the USSR managed to assemble no fewer than 30 V-2s by September 1946.  The German engineers were eventually moved to a new rocket design bureau near Moscow headed by Sergei Korolev named OKB-1.  By 1947, the same year the Americans were prioritizing winged cruise missiles, Stalin authorized the creation of the R-1, a Soviet copy of the V-2 with a 270 km range.  An improved missile, the 50% heavier R-2, would feature improvements from Korolev and Glushko and boast more than double the range (600 km).  Only a month earlier the Soviet nuclear program had detonated its first nuclear bomb.  Taken together these two developments laid the groundwork for the USSR’s first nuclear warhead-tipped ICBMs.   

   The first nuclear warhead-tipped Soviet missile, the R-5, was also a product of Korolev’s OKB-1.  It was a theater-range ballistic missile topped by a 60 kt to 1 Mt+ nuclear warhead, although it took 2.5 hours to prepare for firing.  Its closest US equivalent was the MGR-1 Honest John, which had a short 25 km range.  Developments at sea were keeping pace; in 1955 the USSR’s Zulu IV class submarines became the first experimental ballistic missile submarines in history.  These submarines were able to fire a single hypergolic-fueled tactical ballistic missile called the R-11 Zemlya designed by an engineer named Victor Makeev, who as a result of its success who would dominate all future development of Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missiles.  Like with the Regulus, these early missiles required the submarines to surface and fire.   The US would soon counter this effort with something other than slow submarine-launched Regulus missiles. 

It was Korolev’s next rocket, the R-7, which would redefine nuclear warfare.  Its development was started in 1953 after the Soviet military defined its need for a 170 tonne rocket with an 8,000 km range carrying a 3 tonne thermonuclear warhead.  The result was the biggest rocket yet, a 280 tonne, 34 m tall, 2-stage liquid-fueled monster that required clustered engines.  A rigorous but accident-prone flight testing program saw the R-7 fly over 6000 km on August 21st, 1957.  Thanks to Korolev’s personal persuasion of Nikita Khrushchev, the next launch was of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik I on October 4th, 1957.  Almost immediately, US rocket scientists, including Wernher von Braun, recognized that the USSR had just gained the capability to deliver a non-interceptable nuclear warhead straight onto the continental United States, and geopolitics would never again be the same. 

   1957 is the year rocketry become part of the ultimate weapons system: the nuclear warhead-tipped ICBM.  Understandably it was now having a political impact commensurate with its true capabilities.  The fleets of heavy nuclear bombers the US had built in WWII’s aftermath were now utterly outclassed.  Unlike bombers, rockets were launched from secure sites far from enemy air forces, could not be intercepted by enemy air defenses, and would arrive half an hour after war started.  In contrast to World War II, when the boom in demand helped the US economy and relatively few American lives were lost, a potential World War III promised no gain and might extinguish the entire country in a matter of hours.  There were other advances in this period in cruise missiles, air-to-air missiles, rocket artillery, and surface-to-air missiles, but none of those developments changed mankind’s future prospects like intercontinental ballistic missiles.  The only irony in all of these developments is that the launch of Sputnik I atop the world’s first ICBM also marked the first peaceful use for such technology.
         
Space Race (1957-1972)

1958 would prove nearly as momentous year for the future of rocketry as 1957.  Wernher von Braun’s Army Ballistic Missile Agency team flung America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit on the 1st of February using a Juno 1 (a Jupiter-C with an additional stage) and discovered the Van Allen radiation belts in the process.   America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created on April 2nd from the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics and given the mission of conducting all non-military space activities for the country.  The US, unlike the USSR, even created a coordinating committee chaired by the President to oversee all civilian and military space programs.  The effects of these two differing approaches would be acutely felt as the Space Race between the superpowers heated up.  France in October of 1958 would see its Fifth Republic founded and with it, the rise to power of Charles de Gaulle.  De Gaulle felt France needed an independent nuclear deterrent to ensure its security.  To give France that capability it needed an independent missile program as well.  The Diamant missile program and much of Europe’s future space launch capability can trace its ancestry to decisions made by de Gaulle in 1958. 

   Luna 1, the first mission to reach the Moon, was successful in 1959, while the US’ attempts to match the Soviets’ lunar first suffered a series of embarrassing failures.  Luna 1 was the first lunar spacecraft, saw the first outer space engine restart, made the first detection of the Solar Wind, and became the first man made objection in a heliocentric orbit.  The year also saw the first rocket launching a satellite into a polar orbit (US’ Discoverer 1), the first lunar impact (Luna 2), the first photos of the far side of the Moon (Luna 3), and even the first launch of a weather satellite.  The year also saw another major first for rocketry when a Soviet S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile made the first recorded shoot down of a hostile airplane near Taiwan, although the success was kept a secret.  The S-75, also known as the SA-2 Guideline to NATO, was a 2-stage rocket with a solid-fuel core and a stable liquid-fuel upper stage that had a 45 km range and could attain Mach 3.5.  It was developed to counter the threat of the Strategic Air Command’s new B-52.  Its development would pay off when the US authorized a U-2 spy plane flight over Chelyabinsk in 1960 by Francis Gary Powers.  Fighter aircraft were unable to intercept the U-2 due to its extreme operating altitude, but an S-75 battery near Sverdlovsk successfully shot the plane down, which would see US-Soviet relations markedly deteriorate. 

   1960 also saw a deadlier version of the ballistic missile debut in the form of the Polaris missile.  It was a two stage solid fueled rocket with a 4600 km (2500 nm) range that was launched from a ballistic missile submarine. The Polaris could be fired in minutes compared to hours and thanks to its mobile launch platform gave the US a true “second-strike capability” not vulnerable to Soviet air defenses like the Regulus cruise missile.  Although by this time the US had the Atlas & Titan liquid propellant ICBMs, solid fuel ballistic missiles like the Polaris would prove to be the future.  With the Polaris now an active weapon, the US now had a nuclear triad, with nuclear bombers, ICBMs and submarine launched ballistic missiles giving it a creditable first and second strike capability.  The year saw a number of rocketry firsts as repurposed ICBMs on both sides put up the first imaging weather satellite, the first spy satellite, the first passive communications satellite, the first satellite recovered intact from orbit, and even launched and recovered the first live animals from outer space (the dogs Belka and Strelka). 

   In 1961, the new US President, John Kennedy, entered office after making a large issue of the supposed “missile gap” with the USSR.  In reality, the USSR had a grand total of four R-7 Semyorka ICBMs when Kennedy took office, while the US had 170 ICBMs.  In addition, the US had some 27,000 warheads available and adequate means to deliver all of them, while the USSR had 3,600 warheads and mostly relied upon somewhat inaccurate medium-range IRBMs.  This imbalance in reality and rhetoric would play out very dangerously, particularly after Krushchev ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall.  The space firsts came quickly in 1961, with Venera 1 becoming the first rocket mission to employ course corrections and spin stabilization and even completed the first planetary flyby (of Venus).  Yuri Gugarin on Vostok 1 became the first man to orbit the Earth in March and Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 became the first human-piloted spacecraft that also landed in May (Gagarin parachuted to Earth).  Kennedy tasked Vice President Lyndon Johnson with finding a way to catch up.  A week later, Johnson outlined how a manned mission to the Moon would be sufficiently far in the future to be feasible for the US to do it first.  Kennedy made the fateful speech to Congress on May 25th, 1961: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” This set off an unprecedented race to the Moon.   The year closed out with two more firsts, with Gherman TItov completing the first day in orbit aboard Vostok 2 in August while the first hydrogen engine, the RL-10, was flight qualified in November. 

   If there was any doubt of rocketry’s place at the highest table of geopolitics, 1962 would end all doubt. Kennedy ordered the deployment of obsolescent Jupiter IRBMs to Italy and Turkey in April 1962.  In response to this, Krushchev’s desire to get West Berlin integrated into East Germany, a desire to protect the communist cause in Latin America and to give the USSR a greater ability to target the US, Krushchev ordered the deployment of ballistic missiles to Cuba in May.  By August 1962, the US became suspicious when its reconnaissance planes spotted Soviet S-75 Dvina anti-aircraft missiles in Cuba, which the US reasoned (correctly) would only be deployed to shield ballistic missiles.  The first Soviet ballistic missiles arrived on September 8th.  The USSR plan called for deploying the hypergolic fueled R-12 and R-14 medium range IRBMs, which had ranges sufficient target most of the continental US.  Suddenly the US would be facing the prospect that the USSR could launch a nuclear first strike that could hit major American cities in under 10 minutes.  Confronted by Soviet anti-aircraft missiles, US U-2 reconnaissance flights were constrained for five weeks.  Eventually they photographed Soviet missile bases, leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Despite the shoot down of a U-2, a US naval blockade, and Fidel Castro’s urging of a preemptive nuclear strike, the crisis was resolved by exchanging the withdrawal of Soviet missiles for a withdrawal of Jupiter IRBMs from Turkey and a guarantee that the US would not invade Cuba.  1962 thankfully also saw a number of non-military firsts as the Space Race.  The first solar observatory, active communications satellite, dual-crewed flights (Vostok 3 and 4), non-superpower artificial satellite (Canada’s Alouette 1) and first US planetary flyby (Mariner 2) all took place. 

   Propelled by the Space Race and geopolitical rivalry, the US and USSR continued making major improvements in their rockets, enabling space exploration firsts as well as an ever-greater ability to annihilate the other.  1963 saw the USSR put the first woman into orbit (Valentina Tereshkova) and set the manned spaceflight endurance record on Vostok 6.  The US in contrast lifted the first satellite to geosynchronous orbit (Syncom-2), placed the first satellite navigation system in orbit (NAVSAT-USN) and flew the first spaceplane (the X-15).  1964 saw the People’s Republic of China join the nuclear powers, a feat only previously accomplished by the US (1945), USSR (1949), UK (1954) and France (1960).  It soon started its own rocket programs to deter the other nuclear powers.  The superpowers kept up the pace in 1964, with the USSR launching the first multi-person crewed mission (Voshkod 1), while the US launched the first truly geostationary satellite (Syncom-3) as it ramped up its involvement in the Vietnam War.  The war would see the first guided air-to-air missiles in combat, massively altering the distances in aerial combat, although some accounts suggest early missiles were hitting their targets only 10% of the time.  1964 also marked the debut of the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, which was perhaps the first aircraft developed with stealth technology in order to evade anti-aircraft missiles. 

1965 saw France’s orbital debut when its Diamant rocket lifted off from Hammaguir, Algeria and put the Asterix satellite into orbit.  Although this three-stage-rocket paled in comparison to the superpowers’ latest designs, it marked the first independent orbital launch capability.  Both superpowers meanwhile were racing to best each other, with the first extra vehicular activity being done during Voshkod 2 by Alexey Leonov of the USSR.  Not to be outdone, the US’ Gemini program accomplished the first piloted spacecraft orbit change (Gemini-3), two space endurance records (Gemini-5 and Gemini-7), the first orbital rendezvous (Gemini-6A and Gemini-7), and Mariner-4 also made the first flyby of Mars.   1966 saw more firsts for the US, with Gemini-8 and ATV-NASA making the first docking while Gemini-11 demonstrated the first direct ascent rendezvous.  The Soviets, while beginning to fall behind in rocket launch technology as America’s Saturn IB debuted, still managed to make the first soft landing on the Moon (Luna 9), put the first satellite into orbit around the Moon (Luna 10), and even impacted the first planet (Venus) with Venera 3.  The Soviet space program however suffered a grievous blow when Chief Designer Sergei Korolev passed away.  Korolev’s deputy, Vasily Mishin, inherited both Korolev’s funding problems as well as his disagreements with rocket engine developer Valentin Glushko.  It was due to these ferocious disagreements with Glushko that their N-1 moon rocket had to make do with many smaller rocket engines developed by an aircraft manufacturer. 

1967 saw the successful debut of the Saturn V, the largest, most advanced and most efficient rocket yet.  The Soviets in contrast, hampered by in-fighting and inadequate funding, would not have such luck with their N-1.  They did have one first in 1967 when they managed to dock the first two remotely controlled spacecraft (Kosmos 186 and Kosmos 188).  The USSR’s Soyuz 1 mission also saw the first in-flight fatality in spacefaring history.  1968 saw new firsts, this time achieved solely by the US, with OAO-2 being the first ultraviolet observatory and Apollo 8 becoming the first manned craft put into orbit around the Moon.  The USSR managed to carry out the first crew exchange in orbit in 1969 (Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5), but the US topped this by landing on and returning from the Moon with Moon rocks during Apollo 11 and Apollo 12.  The Space Race was now petering out, but new firsts continued at a prodigious rate.  In 1970 the Soviets accomplished the first robotic sample return from the Moon with Luna 16, landed the first remote-control rover, Lunokhod 1, and Venera 7 returned the first data from its descent onto Venus.  NASA managed to save the crew of Apollo 13 while also putting the first X-ray observatory (Uhuru) into orbit.   Two new powers, Japan and China, also joined the Space Age.  Japan put its Osumi satellite into orbit in February with a Lambda 4S rocket, while China put its Dong Fang Hong I satellite into orbit with its Long March 1 rocket. 

NASA returned to the Moon in 1971 with Apollo 14, debuted the first manned rover with Apollo 15, and placed the first satellite into Martian orbit (Mariner 9).  Although stung by failures of the N-1, the USSR still managed to launch the first space station (Salyut 1), set a new manned endurance record, and made the first landings on the Martian surface (Mars 2 and 3), although the probes did little beyond land on Mars.  The UK launched its first satellite, Prospero, aboard its Black Arrow rocket, but ironically decided to end the program and lose its independent orbital launch capability.  The final year of the Space Race saw the US complete the final Moon landings, fling Pioneer 10 on the first Sun escape trajectory through the Asteroid Belt, and lift the first gamma ray observatory (SAS-2).  The year finished with a first that foreshadowed rocketry’s increasingly commercial future, when Canada’s Anik A1 became the first commercially operating domestic satellite in geostationary orbit. 

   Rocketry advanced enormously during the Space Race Era.  Perhaps the best demonstration of this is the difference between the rockets that launched the first satellite and the first men to the Moon.  The USSR’s 267 tonne Sputnik-PS (almost identical to the R-7 ICBM) launched Sputnik 1 into orbit in 1957 and was capable of lifting up to 500 kg (1100 lb) into LEO.  Maximum rocket capability to LEO grew at an astounding compound annual rate of 83.51% a year and ended in 1967, when the 2970 tonne Saturn V debuted.  It was 236 times as capable to LEO as the Sputnik-PS but massed only ~11.1 times as much, meaning it was 20.42 times as efficient at lifting mass to LEO as the original orbital launch vehicle.  ICBMs saw similar though less drastic improvements, with slow to fire, single warhead liquid-fueled ICBMs being replaced by rapid fire solid and hypergolic-fueled ICBMs capable of targeting multiple targets with warheads atop independent reentry vehicles.  Rockets nearly wiped out the anti-aircraft gun in this era and forced new tactics and emphasis on stealth.  Ballistic missiles launched from submarines completed the “nuclear triad” for each superpower and gave each side a deadly “second strike” capability.  Rocketry also massively altered aerial combat via air-to-air missiles, drastically changed engagement ranges of ground targets via cruise missiles, and altered ground combat via improved anti-tank missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and long range rocket artillery.  Few eras show us the perils and promise of rocketry as its state of the art advanced rapidly in this era.  The era actually ended with rocket tech regressing in many ways, with the advanced Saturn V and never successfully launched N-1 production lines closed and far less efficient but more practical launchers like the Atlas-Centaur, Soyuz-U, Delta, Titan III and Proton continuing.
 
Modern Era (1973-Present)

   Rocketry’s modern era kicked off in 1973 with a bang when Soviet anti-tank missiles deployed by Egyptian forces in the Yom Kippur War destroyed numerous Israeli tanks and forced changes in tank tactics as well as armor.  Under attack, new nuclear weapons state Israel nearly decided to drop nuclear warheads on Damascus and Cairo, but decided otherwise when its conventional counterattack succeeded.  Afterwards it prioritized both nuclear and rocketry development to deter its enemies.   The war marked the end of the long postwar boom and rocketry’s rapid development, with rocketry seeing more emphasis on incremental improvements, cost-cutting and maintaining access to space.  It was due to this emphasis on costs that America began developing the reusable Space Shuttle even as it launched the last of the Apollo CSMs (to the Skylab space station launched on the last Saturn V) between 1973 and 1975.  US space probes continued to accomplish new firsts in 1974, with Pioneer 10 making the first Jupiter flyby, and Mariner 10 performing the first planetary gravitational assist flying by Venus before making the first flyby of Mercury.  1974 marked the debut of India as a nuclear power with the “peaceful explosion” of its Smiling Buddha nuclear bomb.  Understandably India and Pakistan were developing both nuclear weapons as a deterrent against China and India respectively.  The next year the USSR and the US carried out the first and only joint Apollo-Soyuz flight.  1975 also saw Soviet probe Venera 9 achieve Venus orbit and also send back photos from the surface.  The US’ Viking Lander landed on Mars in 1976 and took the first photos and soil samples.  America finally put the Pioneer Venus Orbiter into orbit around Venus in 1978 and began carrying out the first-ever multi-year orbital study of another planet.    The decade ended with Voyager 1 discovering volcanism on Jupiter’s moon Io during a flyby, Pioneer 11 making the first flyby of Saturn and Europe’s Ariane 1 being launched from Kourou, French Guyana, in South America. 

   India became the 7th country to achieve orbit in 1980 when its 17 tonne SLV rocket put its Rohini D1 satellite into orbit for nine days.  The decade’s first major event came in April 1981 with the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-1), which became the first reusable spacecraft.  Its debut marked the first launch of a staged combustion-cycle hydrogen/oxygen engine by any power.  1982 saw Venera 13 carry out the first soil samples and sound recordings from Venus and the Falklands War break out between the UK and Argentina, with guided anti-ship missiles proving particularly dangerous.  As a result anti-aircraft missiles worldwide increasingly were pushed into defending fleets and armies via interception of enemy cruise, ballistic and anti-ship missiles.  Accomplishments came slowly, with 1983 seeing Pioneer 10 become the first spacecraft beyond Neptune’s orbit and the first infrared orbital observatory (IRAS) and Bruce McCandless II carrying out the first untethered spacewalk in 1984.  1985 witnessed a dangerous first when the US used an ASM-135 ASAT, a multi-stage F-15 carried missile, to destroy the P78-1 satellite, which foreshadowed the expansion of war into space.  The following year saw the first flyby of Uranus (Voyager 2) and the first consistently manned space station (Mir). 

1986 also saw the Challenger disaster, which grounded the Shuttle fleet for years and led to an end to the Shuttle’s commercial launch monopoly in the US.  Rocketry also made its way into the Soviet-Afghan War with the debut of the Stinger man-portable aerial defense missile (MANPAD).  Although such weapons were first invented by the Germans in World War II, this war saw their first widespread use.  Some have credited such missiles with forcing the Soviets to withdraw, though the decision to withdraw was made in 1985 and their effectiveness waned as the Soviets adapted.  1987 and 1988 saw the only two launches made by USSR’s Energia heavy lift launch vehicle carrying the Polyus satellite and Buran space shuttle.  The Energia was the most advanced and efficient rocket ever launched, and represented a new highpoint for the technology, but sadly due to the USSR’s dramatic economic decline it would never fly again.  Its Buran shuttle was similar to the US’ Shuttle but could fly autonomously, improving its safety.  Israel became the 8th nation to have an independent launch capability in 1988 with the launch of Ofeq 1 on its 30 tonne Shavit launch vehicle.  The decade ended with Voyager 2 making the first flyby of Neptune while the first cosmic microwave observatory (COBE) was launched. 

   1990 witnessed the launch of the iconic optical orbital observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, the US probe Magellan beginning the first multi-year study of Venus, and the Pegasus rocket becoming the first privately-funded rocket to make orbit.  The next year saw the very first flyby of an asteroid by Galileo, a probe en route to Jupiter.  Ulysses, a European Space Agency (ESA)/US probe, became the first spacecraft ever put into a polar orbit around the Sun.  The year ended with a political earthquake of massive proportions when the USSR dissolved into 15 independent republics, with the Russian Federation and Republic of Ukraine inheriting most of the USSR’s rocketry expertise but Kazakhstan gaining the important Baikonur launch site.  With the Cold War over, it would take until 1995 to see new firsts.  Valeri Polyakov set a 437 day endurance record aboard the Mir Space Station, the US’ Galileo probe made the first orbit of Jupiter and even sent the first atmospheric probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere.  1997 would see the first rover (Sojourner) put on Mars, while Japan’s HALCA became the first orbital radio observatory.  1998 would finally witness the fruit of the Cold War ending, with the first multinational space station, the International Space Station, beginning to be constructed via a partnership between the US, Russia, Canada, ESA and Japan. 

In 2000, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos created the American rocketry firm Blue Origin with the initial goal of making reusable suborbital flight routine and cheap.  Paypal multi-millionaire Elon Musk would follow Bezos’ lead in 2002 when he founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) with the goal of drastically cutting the price required to pay for a kg of cargo reaching orbit.  It was to be the start of a major shift in rocketry pushing it out of its post Space Race doldrums.  In between the founding of these two firms NASA and ESA’s NEAR Shoemaker probe made the first orbit and then first landing on an asteroid.  The year 2003 would see yet another Shuttle disaster when the original Space Shuttle, Columbia, disintegrated during reentry due to damage to its wings from falling foam.  At once the entire American space program was halted and reevaluated. In 2004 a return to the Moon was announced alongside the commercial resupply of the International Space Station.  The joint NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens mission made the first orbit of Saturn the same year, and a soft landing by the Huygens lander on the moon of Titan followed in 2005.  The Japanese Hayabusa probe also carried out the first asteroid sample, returning to Earth five years later.  NASA’s Stardust probe would top this in 2006 by making the first sample return from a comet.  China debuted successfully tested an anti-satellite weapon in 2007, renewing fears of a war in space that could either bring about massed nuclear weapons attacks or strand humanity on Earth.  2008 saw the onset of the Great Recession but also the first orbital launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 1, the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket. 

Iran became the 9th country to have independent orbital launch capabilities in 2009 when its Safir-1A lifted its Omid satellite into orbit.  The accomplishment was watched warily by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia given Iran’s nuclear program.  In 2010 SpaceX became the first non-government entity to launch and return an object from space during its first launch of its larger Falcon 9 rocket while the Hayabusa probe finally returned to Earth.  2011 witnessed the end of the Space Shuttle, the first probe to orbit Mercury (NASA’s MESSENGER), and the first probe to orbit the giant asteroid Vesta (NASA’s Dawn).  SpaceX became the first private firm to berth a spaceship with the International Space Station in 2012, Voyager 1 became first manmade object to reach interstellar space, and North Korea became the 10th country to develop an independent orbital launch capability when its Unha-3 rocket put the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2 into LEO.   Two years later the ESA’s Rosetta probe became the first to touch down on a comet.  2015 saw NASA’s DAWN make orbit around Ceres, the first-ever flyby of Pluto by NASA’s New Horizons probe, the first ever food grown in zero-gee, and the year ended with the first-ever rocket booster landing when Blue Origin landed the New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle in New Mexico.  SpaceX followed this up by landing the core stage of its first Falcon 9 FT launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral.  SpaceX would top this accomplishment in 2016 with the first-ever sea landings of booster cores on autonomous ocean barges.  Blue Origin soon thereafter announced plans for the biggest families of reusable rockets yet, the New Glenn and New Armstrong, setting the stage for a possible seismic shift in the economics of rocketry.  On September 27th, 2016, SpaceX’s Elon Musk announced plans to develop the largest rocket ever built in order to colonize Mars. 

...continued further down thread

[deaville]

An interesting, comprehensive and informative piece. However, there are some very minor points that I would argue with. I suppose it depends on which source one consults.
For example, in a piece I wrote many moons ago for a UK publication I recorded that the first use of rockets in warfare was 85 AD in a battle between the Chinese and Tartars. It's also worth noting that in more modern times by the time of WW1, the French had taken development to the point where they were able to use them as ground to air missiles against observation balloons. Further, this did not stop the British claiming first use of the rocket in WW2.
This said, might I presume to suggest that the history to be complete needs to mention the influence of the mystic force of narrativium - the force that drives Man to achieve what he believes in and writes about eventually happens. To this end might I add this, again from my article -
It is unfortunate that history does not accurately record when the first plans for extra-terrestrial travel began to be formulated. Instead we are left with tantalising glimpses in the literature of the ages.
The first surviving work to feature a journey to the Moon was written in about 160AD by Lucian of Samosata. Called ‘Vera Historia’ his travellers were swept up by a tornado, to be deposited on the Moon after a seven day nightmare. There then followed a long gap through the Dark Ages until the stimulation of fresh ideas provided by the work of Copernicus, Keppler and Galileo. Though all three contributed to the understanding of the physical nature of our universe, it was to Keppler that we must turn for a further insight into the possibilities of spaceflight. In 1629, after his death, was published his book ‘Somnium’ (The Dream). Hoping that it would be a “… useful guide for emigrants and pilgrims who will be settling on the Moon … “, Keppler was the first to point out the difference in atmosphere of our natural satellite.
A little later, in 1638, was printed ‘The Man in the Moone’, its author being somewhat freer with the known scientific facts than his predecessors. Francis Godwin, a bishop, described how Domingo Gonzales was flown to the Moon on a flimsy raft towed by a flight of trained swans. More realistic was the work of another English bishop, John Wilkins, who added a chapter to his ‘Discovery of a World in the Moone’ in which he discussed the likelihood that one day a vehicle might be built in which men could sit to be projected through space.
The discovery in 1647 by Johannes Hevelius that the Moon was most unlikely to have an atmosphere did not deter Cyrano de Bergerac from writing his version of a lunar excursion in 1649. Rather fanciful in general content, the Frenchman did possess a nose (if the pun is excused) for things to come, for he was the first to write of the use of rockets to propel his traveller on the inter-planetary journey.
By the middle of the eighteenth century the emphasis of science had undergone a subtle change. Instead of visiting other planets Man had begun to receive visitors from other worlds. Voltaire wrote of a giant from Sirius and in 1775 Guillaume de la Follie used the newly discovered electricity to propel his inhabitant of Mercury round the Earth.
However, the real growth period came another hundred years on. Making use of the advances in science, books appeared that carried men to Venus using hydraulic power (Eyraud), to the Moon using anti-matter (Atterley) and one by Jules Verne, who though he showed a preference for a huge cannon as a method of propulsion, did accurately foretell the launch site.
This period marked the zenith of fictional space exploration. Though such writings were to enjoy a modest revival with the advent of flying saucer scares in the 1950’s, the practicalities of space travel now began to overtake the imagination.

[Archibald]

Circa 1916-1917 SPAD VII and SPAD XIII were armed with Le Prieur rockets to shoot down German artillery balloons from a distance (since the balloons were protected by heavy flak)

[Hyperion5]

--continued from opening post (cut off due to some sort of post length limit):

Since 1973 rocketry has made uneven technological progress, with much of its improvement coming via the massive improvement in computing power, software and sensors, which coincidentally has also cut the cost of rocketry development.   For those wishing to see rocketry’s positive potential, the recent progress in orbital launch vehicle technology brought about by American firms has the potential to bring about a new Space Age with lower-cost reusable rockets.   This could also potentially speed up mankind’s exploration of the cosmos and eventually lead to humanity colonizing Mars, a potential made more concrete by the release of Mars colonization plans by SpaceX.  Alas, rocketry’s dualistic nature is never very far away, as any article on North Korea’s missile program can attest.  In the military sphere, perhaps no area has seen more development than air defense systems used to defend against missiles and aircraft, which is reflected in the huge jump in capability of such systems.  The USSR’s S-75 Dvina in 1973 boasted a maximum range of 45 km (28 miles), a maximum intercept altitude of 25 km (15.5 miles), and a maximum velocity of approximately 4,000 km/h (2500 mph).  Its progeny today, the S-400, boasts a maximum range of 400 km/250 miles (or 8.9 times better), a maximum intercept altitude of 185 km (115 miles) (or 7.4 times better), and a maximum velocity of 7250 kph (4500 mph) (or 1.8 times better).   Ballistic missile technology in contrast has advanced less, although that is little consolation when a single Russian RS-28 Satan 2 is capable of delivering enough nuclear warheads to annihilate an area the size of France or Texas.  Smaller rockets, like cruise missiles, air-to-air missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and even rocket artillery have seen major increases in accuracy and range since 1973, with an increasing emphasis on hypersonic speed lately to decrease their chances of being intercepted.  The smallest forms of rocketry, like MANPADs, RPGs and anti-tank missiles have become ubiquitous and overwhelmed advances in armor technology, forcing modern tanks to rely on new anti-missile protection systems. 

Rocketry started out in China during the 600s after partiers noticed that gunpowder tubes could more than explode, but also propel themselves.  In the 14 centuries since, it evolved slowly at first before seeing a massive change of its fortunes in the 20th century.  By 2015, it was capable of sending probes past Pluto at speeds that allowed the New Horizons probe to cover the distance from the Earth to the Moon in 6.5 hours.  Today we enjoy many of its commercial benefits, from improved farming, satellite navigation, satellite television, weather forecasting, the potential to spot deadly threats to the Earth and more.  We also live in fear of the devastation it could wreak worldwide, a dualism that has always been present in rocketry’s progress.  It could provide us with a means to colonize Mars and beyond, or it could strand us for centuries upon the Earth due to a war in space, or worse, deliver the end of humanity’s progress in nuclear war.  As you finish reading this opening post, I encourage everyone to weigh in on the past and present of rocketry, its impact on humanity, and perhaps most importantly, where humanity and rocketry are heading together. 

--This thread is dedicated to the people who have toiled for millennia to bring rocketry to the advanced state at which it is today.  It’s also dedicated to the heroes, as Stephen Colbert would say.  And who are the heroes?  The people who read this thread!   

[Hyperion5]

Circa 1916-1917 SPAD VII and SPAD XIII were armed with Le Prieur rockets to shoot down German artillery balloons from a distance (since the balloons were protected by heavy flak)

I referenced this in the opening post but forgot to mention the specific rockets involved--I've now corrected that omission.  Thanks for the interest. 

[Hyperion5]

An interesting, comprehensive and informative piece. However, there are some very minor points that I would argue with. I suppose it depends on which source one consults.

For example, in a piece I wrote many moons ago for a UK publication I recorded that the first use of rockets in warfare was 85 AD in a battle between the Chinese and Tartars. It's also worth noting that in more modern times by the time of WW1, the French had taken development to the point where they were able to use them as ground to air missiles against observation balloons. Further, this did not stop the British claiming first use of the rocket in WW2.

Amongst the sources I used was this page from the NASA Glenn Research Center, which specifically mentions 1232 as the first date when true rockets were used in battle and 1045 being when they were first referenced historically: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/TRC/Rockets/history_of_rockets.html.  Interestingly NASA (and multiple other reputable sites) are contradicted by Space.com (http://www.space.com/29295-rocket-history.html), which gives the 1st century AD as the time rockets first appeared.  Of the two dates, I find the later date far more believable.  Why?  It meshes better with other aspects of rocket-related history, like fireworks.  Why, if rockets were invented in the 1st century AD not long after gunpowder, did it take a further 6 centuries to produce fireworks?  Fireworks work on the same principles of physics, so this should have been a fairly easy jump.  The rockets the Chinese did create by 1045 were reported to have evolved from "fire arrows", which in turn were not around prior to the 10th century.  While it's certainly possible rockets were invented almost immediately after gunpowder, later events do not mesh particularly well with this ordering of history. 

[RocketmanUS]

As history is full of using rockets as weapons, mankind can choose to use them in a peaceful way. The space launch industry is closing in on having a reusable 1st stage to lower the cost of getting to space. In the near future ( 10 to 20 years ) we may see people mining and manufacturing on the moon and in space stations.

1926 first liquid rocket launched. 1969 first man on the moon. 1981 first reusable shuttle. Now companies are working on lower cost reusable launchers and space craft. It has been 90 years since the first liquid rocket launch. It took 43 years since that to send men to the surface of the moon. Hopefully mankind will focus on the peaceful use of reusable space craft for future use of rockets and see people living and working in space ( not just the few we have on the ISS today but hundreds or even thousands ).

[Vahe231991]

An interesting, comprehensive and informative piece. However, there are some very minor points that I would argue with. I suppose it depends on which source one consults.

For example, in a piece I wrote many moons ago for a UK publication I recorded that the first use of rockets in warfare was 85 AD in a battle between the Chinese and Tartars. It's also worth noting that in more modern times by the time of WW1, the French had taken development to the point where they were able to use them as ground to air missiles against observation balloons. Further, this did not stop the British claiming first use of the rocket in WW2.

Amongst the sources I used was this page from the NASA Glenn Research Center, which specifically mentions 1232 as the first date when true rockets were used in battle and 1045 being when they were first referenced historically: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/TRC/Rockets/history_of_rockets.html.  Interestingly NASA (and multiple other reputable sites) are contradicted by Space.com (http://www.space.com/29295-rocket-history.html), which gives the 1st century AD as the time rockets first appeared.  Of the two dates, I find the later date far more believable.  Why?  It meshes better with other aspects of rocket-related history, like fireworks.  Why, if rockets were invented in the 1st century AD not long after gunpowder, did it take a further 6 centuries to produce fireworks?  Fireworks work on the same principles of physics, so this should have been a fairly easy jump.  The rockets the Chinese did create by 1045 were reported to have evolved from "fire arrows", which in turn were not around prior to the 10th century.  While it's certainly possible rockets were invented almost immediately after gunpowder, later events do not mesh particularly well with this ordering of history.

The first web link you cite only says this about the supposed use of rockets in the 1st century CE:

Just when the first true rockets appeared is unclear. Stories of early rocket like devices appear sporadically through the historical records of various cultures. Perhaps the first true rockets were accidents. In the first century A.D., the Chinese reportedly had a simple form of gunpowder made from saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal dust. To create explosions during religous festivals, they filled bamboo tubes with a mixture and tossed them into fires. Perhaps some of those tubes failed to explode and instead skittered out of the fires, propelled by the gases and sparks produced by the burning gunpowder.

As noted in the 2005 book Warfare in China to 1600 by Peter Lorge, the official Chinese historical account of the Song dynasty published in the 14th century, titled History of Song attributes the invention of the rocket to two different people in China, Feng Zhisheng in 969 and Tang Fu in 1000. Therefore, the first rockets to be created by the Chinese must have been developed not too long after the formula for making gunpowder was discovered.

[Phil Stooke]

deaville:  "... in a piece I wrote many moons ago for a UK publication I recorded that the first use of rockets in warfare was 85 AD in a battle between the Chinese and Tartars."

Since this directly contradicts other statements made in this thread, it would be useful to know more about it.  What was your source of information?  Is the word 'rocket' being used in the source for what we would call a rocket today?  How do we reconcile this with the various other statements about rockets appearing in the period around 1000?

[Blackstar]

deaville:  "... in a piece I wrote many moons ago for a UK publication I recorded that the first use of rockets in warfare was 85 AD in a battle between the Chinese and Tartars."

Since this directly contradicts other statements made in this thread, it would be useful to know more about it.  What was your source of information?  Is the word 'rocket' being used in the source for what we would call a rocket today?  How do we reconcile this with the various other statements about rockets appearing in the period around 1000?

Look at the dates. That was written almost six and a half years ago.

For people who have not figured it out yet, Vahe231991 is a troll. He randomly responds to posts that are many years old, sometimes a decade or more. There is no real logic to what he does other than he's trolling.

[AS_501]

Hyperion5's post is a great read, thanks.  There are many fine rocket history texts out there  One of them was David Baker's "The Rocket - The History and Development of Rocket and Missile Technology", which fed my space appetite back in the day.  It was last published in 1978.

https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-History-Development-Missile-Technology/dp/0517534045

[Vahe231991]

deaville:  "... in a piece I wrote many moons ago for a UK publication I recorded that the first use of rockets in warfare was 85 AD in a battle between the Chinese and Tartars."

Since this directly contradicts other statements made in this thread, it would be useful to know more about it.  What was your source of information?  Is the word 'rocket' being used in the source for what we would call a rocket today?  How do we reconcile this with the various other statements about rockets appearing in the period around 1000?

A paper published by Wang Ling in 1947 titled "On the invention and use of gunpowder and firearms in China" mentions on page 161 the supposed use of gunpowder in 85 CE:

In another western book, dealing with the invention of gunpowder (Robert Norton's The Gunner), we find the following quotation:

Uffano reported that the invention and use as well of ordnance as of gunpowder took place in the year 85 of our Lord, and was known and practiced in the great and ingenious kingdom of China. In the Maraty province thereof, there yet remain certain pieces of ordnance both of iron and brasse with the memory of the year of founding ingraved on them and the arms of King Vitey, who was said to have been the inventor. And it also ap pears in ancient and credible histories, that the said King Vitey was an enchanter, and being vexed with cruel wars by the Tartarians, conjured an evil spirit, that he might show him the use and making of guns and powder, which he put into practice in the realm of Pegu, and in the conquest of East-India, and thereby quieted the Tartars. The same being confirmed by certain Portuguese, that have travelled and navigated those quarters, and also affirmed by a letter sent from Captain Artrad written to the King of Spain, wherein are recounted very diligently all the particulars of China, and said that they long since used both ordnance and powder. He affirms further, that he found ancient ill-shaped pieces but that those of later founding are of better fashion and metal than the ancient 5 were.

Based on this report, Norton fixes the date for the invention of gunpowder in China as the year A.D. 85. The invention is thus attributed to an enchanter, and a miraculous story is connected with it. Iron and brass ordnance is said to have been con structed at the same time. But the whole statement lacks basis, and need not be further dealt with.

Wang Ling, 1947. On the invention and use of gunpowder and firearms in China. Isis 37 (3/4):160-78. doi: 10.1086/348023.