Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin Eduardovich

TSIOLKOVSKY, KONSTANTIN EDUARDOVICH

(1857–1935), Russian space technology expert.

Born in Izhevskoye, Tsiolkovsky was a pioneer of rocket technology and astronautics, known in Russia as cosmonautics. Tsiolkovsky might be termed the "Robert Goddard of Russia," after the American rocket expert, who, like Tsiolkovsky, began testing rockets in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Tsiolkovsky is generally credited with deducing for the first time the laws of motion of a rocket as a body of a variable mass in space without gravity. This, in turn, demonstrated the possibility of using rockets for interplanetary exploration. He also investigated the effect of air drag on rocket motion. Such theories and research became subjects of his writings, which included Space Rocket Trains, published in 1929, which explored the theory of multistage rockets.

Among Tsiolkovsky's major influences on future space flight, and in particular on the successful orbiting of the world's first sputnik (in October 1957), was his work on liquid-propellant engines. In such research and writing he developed the specifications for rocket-engine design. Modern rocket engines still incorporate many of his basic ideas.

Much attention is given in Tsiolkovsky's writings to problems of organizing interplanetary travel and its prospects. He argued that beginning with artificial earth satellites (sputniks), interplanetary stations and flights to the planets could become a way of establishing communities in outer space and adapting space for human needs.

With the advent of Soviet power in Russia, Tsiolkovsky's work received the full support of the state. In 1918 he was elected to the Socialist Academy of Science. Later honors included membership in Russia's main cosmonautics society and the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. His collected scientific writings appeared in the USSR from 1951 through 1964.

See also: academy of sciences; space program

bibliography

Petrovich, G. V. (2002). The Soviet Encyclopedia of Space Flight. Seattle, WA: University Press of the Pacific.

Albert L. Weeks