Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Reaction Devices
반작용 장치에 의한 우주 공간의 탐구
The founding document of theoretical cosmonautics, published by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the May 1903 issue of Nauchnoe Obozrenie (Science Review, No. 5) in St. Petersburg, in which humanity's first mathematical theory of rocket-powered spaceflight was set forth. In it Tsiolkovsky used his rocket equation to calculate the horizontal speed required for minimal Earth orbit (~8,000 m/s) and publicly proposed liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen propellants and the multistage rocket, which he called a 'rocket train.' Most copies of the issue were confiscated by Tsarist authorities because it also contained a politically subversive article, but sequels appeared in 1911–1914, and the work became the theoretical starting point of the entire Soviet space program.
In depth
Publication History
Tsiolkovsky completed the manuscript in 1898, having first broached the idea of communication with outer space in his 1895 work Dreams of Earth and Sky (Грезы о земле и небе). After rejections from several periodicals, M. M. Filippov, editor of Nauchnoe Obozrenie, was the sole publisher willing to accept it. Filippov is said to have circumvented the Tsarist censor by taking Dmitri Mendeleev's advice to frame the paper not as anti-religious cosmology but as research into 'pyrotechnics' for imperial celebrations.
The paper appeared in the May 1903 issue, but almost all copies were confiscated by the authorities because the same issue contained a politically revolutionary article. Tsiolkovsky himself retained only a single copy.
Content
The work unfolded in three installments. Part one (1903) established the mathematical basis of reaction propulsion, presented the rocket equation Δv = vₑ ln(m₀/mf), and argued for liquid propellants. Part two (1911–1912, serialized in Vestnik' Vozdukhoplavania) computed the energy required to overcome gravity and the escape velocity. Part three (1914, self-published as a pamphlet in Kaluga) supplemented the earlier sections and included a concrete spacecraft design: a three-section craft (crew compartment, liquid oxygen tank, liquid hydrogen tank) widely acknowledged as the prototype of modern spaceship architecture.
Legacy
The paper is the world's first theoretical treatise on astronautics, predating Robert Goddard (1919) and Robert Esnault-Pelterie (1913). Under the Soviet state it was canonized as the intellectual source of the space program, and the practical designers Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko both traced their commitment to space engineering to encountering this text as young men. Tsiolkovsky reissued the work under the same title in a revised 1926 edition; collectively the series is still cited as the point of departure in every rocketry textbook.
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Sources
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian Wikipedia: Tsiolkovsky biography, 1903 publication in Nauchnoe Obozrenie No. 5, sequels in 1911–1914
- Wikipedia (EN) English Wikipedia: most important work published May 1903, calculation of 8,000 m/s orbital speed, liquid oxygen/hydrogen, multistage rocket, three-section spacecraft design
- tsiolkovsky.org Tsiolkovsky.org (T.N. Zhelnina, 1994): detailed publication history, manuscript completed 1898, Filippov and Mendeleev's role in bypassing the censor, confiscation of the May 1903 issue
- historyofinformation.com History of Information: three-part publication sequence (1903/1911–12/1914), confiscation of the 1903 issue, first mathematical exposition of reaction principle in space, Dictionary of Scientific Biography quotation on fundamental flight formulas