92
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
he yearned to ride the carriage made of jade and ivory, which was pulled by the flying
dragons, and to travel in space. Meanwhile, he also portrayed in his another poem
Yuan You that the wind God opened the way for him as he wandered in clouds. It
fully demonstrates the poet’s romance and imagination of traveling in space. By the
Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C.−9 A.D.), with developments of social productive
forces, the people began to believe that as long as equipped with wings, they could
fly in the sky like birds. Therefore, the persons with two or four wings were engraved
in the remaining stone carvings or bronze mirrors of the Western Han Dynasty.
Most of the flying myths and legends handed down in ancient Europe only tell the
flights near the Earth, and do not yet imagine the scenes of flying to other celestial
bodies outside the Earth, such as the Moon. In the mythology of ancient Greece
and Roman, Apollo was a god in charge of the Sun, music, medicine and youth.
According to mythology, Apollo drove the war carriage around the Earth every day
and brought light and joy to the Earth. The science of Europe originated from ancient
Greece. The academic discussions of the ancient Greeks were relatively free, and
they could comment on any problems, such as the origin of heaven and earth, the
structure of the universe and so on. And thus, the various academic schools were
brought up in succession. It is the scientific spirit of ancient Greece: science is a
purely speculative, theoretical and curious investigation [3].
Pythagoras (580 B.C.−500 B.C.), a mathematician and philosopher of ancient
Greece, believed that the earth was spherical and that the Earth and other planets
were moving together around a central fire. Another ancient Greek philosopher,
Aristoteles (384 B.C.−322 B.C.) recognized from the view of aesthetics that the
Earth was spherical, but he insisted that the Earth was a center of the universe and
that both the Earth and other celestial bodies were composed of different matter, in
which the Earth was composed of four elements, including water, gas, fire and soil,
and besides the four elements, other celestial bodies still contained the fifth element,
“ether”. Moreover, an ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus (315 B.C.−230 B.C.)
approximately determined the ratios of the Sun and the Moon relative to the Earth.
Meanwhile, he also believed: the Sun was very larger than the Earth; the Sun and
other stars were all stationary; the Earth rotated around its rotation axis every day,
and moved a circle each year around the Sun in a circular orbit; the Sun located
in the center of the orbit. Unfortunately, the idea of “Heliocentric Theory” was not
universally recognized and widely spread at that time.
Another ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus (190 B.C.−120 B.C.) created a
system of geocentric theory on the basis of a large number of astronomical observations, and used the deferent and epicycle to explain the apparent motions of celestial
bodies. Later, the geocentric theory, further developed by Ptolemy (a Greco-Roman
mathematician and astronomer, 90 A.D.−168 A.D.), gradually formed a complete
theoretical system that ruled European astronomy for more than 1000 years.
Plutarch (46 A.D.−120 A.D.), an ancient Greek biographer, had ever pointed out
that “the Earth should be at the center of the universe, but because the universe was
infinite and unbounded, there was no such center”, which coincides with Einstein’s
modern view of the universe. Furthermore, he also believed: the Moon was the second
Earth, but less than the Earth; other aspects of the Moon were all similar to the Earth,
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
he yearned to ride the carriage made of jade and ivory, which was pulled by the flying
dragons, and to travel in space. Meanwhile, he also portrayed in his another poem
Yuan You that the wind God opened the way for him as he wandered in clouds. It
fully demonstrates the poet’s romance and imagination of traveling in space. By the
Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C.−9 A.D.), with developments of social productive
forces, the people began to believe that as long as equipped with wings, they could
fly in the sky like birds. Therefore, the persons with two or four wings were engraved
in the remaining stone carvings or bronze mirrors of the Western Han Dynasty.
Most of the flying myths and legends handed down in ancient Europe only tell the
flights near the Earth, and do not yet imagine the scenes of flying to other celestial
bodies outside the Earth, such as the Moon. In the mythology of ancient Greece
and Roman, Apollo was a god in charge of the Sun, music, medicine and youth.
According to mythology, Apollo drove the war carriage around the Earth every day
and brought light and joy to the Earth. The science of Europe originated from ancient
Greece. The academic discussions of the ancient Greeks were relatively free, and
they could comment on any problems, such as the origin of heaven and earth, the
structure of the universe and so on. And thus, the various academic schools were
brought up in succession. It is the scientific spirit of ancient Greece: science is a
purely speculative, theoretical and curious investigation [3].
Pythagoras (580 B.C.−500 B.C.), a mathematician and philosopher of ancient
Greece, believed that the earth was spherical and that the Earth and other planets
were moving together around a central fire. Another ancient Greek philosopher,
Aristoteles (384 B.C.−322 B.C.) recognized from the view of aesthetics that the
Earth was spherical, but he insisted that the Earth was a center of the universe and
that both the Earth and other celestial bodies were composed of different matter, in
which the Earth was composed of four elements, including water, gas, fire and soil,
and besides the four elements, other celestial bodies still contained the fifth element,
“ether”. Moreover, an ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus (315 B.C.−230 B.C.)
approximately determined the ratios of the Sun and the Moon relative to the Earth.
Meanwhile, he also believed: the Sun was very larger than the Earth; the Sun and
other stars were all stationary; the Earth rotated around its rotation axis every day,
and moved a circle each year around the Sun in a circular orbit; the Sun located
in the center of the orbit. Unfortunately, the idea of “Heliocentric Theory” was not
universally recognized and widely spread at that time.
Another ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus (190 B.C.−120 B.C.) created a
system of geocentric theory on the basis of a large number of astronomical observations, and used the deferent and epicycle to explain the apparent motions of celestial
bodies. Later, the geocentric theory, further developed by Ptolemy (a Greco-Roman
mathematician and astronomer, 90 A.D.−168 A.D.), gradually formed a complete
theoretical system that ruled European astronomy for more than 1000 years.
Plutarch (46 A.D.−120 A.D.), an ancient Greek biographer, had ever pointed out
that “the Earth should be at the center of the universe, but because the universe was
infinite and unbounded, there was no such center”, which coincides with Einstein’s
modern view of the universe. Furthermore, he also believed: the Moon was the second
Earth, but less than the Earth; other aspects of the Moon were all similar to the Earth,