3.2 Ideas and Technologies of Ancient Space Flights
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and there were residents on the Moon. It was just under the guidance of this antitraditional view that Lucian (120 A.D.−180 A.D.), a sophist and satirist of ancient
Greece, wrote two fantasy fictions on traveling to the Moon: One was The True Story,
in which a series of adventure flying stories of the voyage on the sea were told; the
other was The Man in the Cloud, in which a philosopher named Monis in ancient
Greece equipped with a pair of wings and flew to the Moon in order to prove that
the Earth was round. Although Lucian himself admitted that all the stories in fiction
were fabricated, many novelists got inspiration and fantasy from them.
The flying myths, legends and fantasies in the ancient times have been deeply
seeded in people’s hearts, which established an ideological foundation for space
flight, and for those who are later full of imagination and creativity, are undoubtedly
a power source to explore and discover space science and technology.
3.2.2 Development of Gunpowder and Rocket Technology
Gunpowder is one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China, and a great contribution of the Chinese nation to the development of human civilization. Justly inspired
by the myths and legends like “Chang’e Running to the Moon”, “Da Yi Shooting the
Sun” and “Kua Fu Pursuing the Sun”, immortal magicians believed that they could
make a kind of “immortal medicine” and thus developed alchemy. The alchemy is a
kind of pharmaceutical method of heating and sublimating medicines, the traditional
technique of making Chinese medicines in ancient times. The alchemy was founded
in the Zhou Dynasty (1046 B.C.−256 B.C.) and flourished from the Qin Dynasty (221
B.C.−207 B.C.) to the Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C.−8 A.D.). Both emperors
and nobles were so infatuated with a vision to become immortals forever young that
some necromancers and Taoist-priests were driven to refine “elixir of life” at that
time, and in doing so, the formulations of gunpowder were gradually invented. By the
Sui Dynasty (581−618 A.D.), a form of gunpowder made from saltpeter, sulfur and
charcoal dust had been developed very maturely. During the Tang Dynasty (618−907
A.D.), a black gunpowder formally came into being, whose proportion formula of
“one saltpeter, two sulfurs and three charcoals” was adopted to greatly improve
the efficiency of rapid combustion and explosion, and thus the military fire-arrows
filled with the black gunpowder was developed. The gunpowder originated from the
formulation of making the elixir and was ever used as a medicine. In Compendium of
Materia Medica written by Shizhen Li (1518−1593 A.D.) during the Ming Dynasty,
gunpowder had been used to treat psoriasis, insecticide, dampness and plague.
In ancient Chinese classics, the word “rocket” has wide meanings, which is
different from the modern rocket, a space vehicle that carries its own propellant
and uses the principle of jet propulsion to fly. The ancient rockets, as actual weapons
applied to military wars, could be divided into three types in accordance with their
different design principles and application effects and ranges: classical arson firearrows, gunpowder arson fire-arrows and jet fire-arrows. It was reported that the
classical arson fire-arrows, which were the incendiary agents made from rosin, oil,
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and there were residents on the Moon. It was just under the guidance of this antitraditional view that Lucian (120 A.D.−180 A.D.), a sophist and satirist of ancient
Greece, wrote two fantasy fictions on traveling to the Moon: One was The True Story,
in which a series of adventure flying stories of the voyage on the sea were told; the
other was The Man in the Cloud, in which a philosopher named Monis in ancient
Greece equipped with a pair of wings and flew to the Moon in order to prove that
the Earth was round. Although Lucian himself admitted that all the stories in fiction
were fabricated, many novelists got inspiration and fantasy from them.
The flying myths, legends and fantasies in the ancient times have been deeply
seeded in people’s hearts, which established an ideological foundation for space
flight, and for those who are later full of imagination and creativity, are undoubtedly
a power source to explore and discover space science and technology.
3.2.2 Development of Gunpowder and Rocket Technology
Gunpowder is one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China, and a great contribution of the Chinese nation to the development of human civilization. Justly inspired
by the myths and legends like “Chang’e Running to the Moon”, “Da Yi Shooting the
Sun” and “Kua Fu Pursuing the Sun”, immortal magicians believed that they could
make a kind of “immortal medicine” and thus developed alchemy. The alchemy is a
kind of pharmaceutical method of heating and sublimating medicines, the traditional
technique of making Chinese medicines in ancient times. The alchemy was founded
in the Zhou Dynasty (1046 B.C.−256 B.C.) and flourished from the Qin Dynasty (221
B.C.−207 B.C.) to the Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C.−8 A.D.). Both emperors
and nobles were so infatuated with a vision to become immortals forever young that
some necromancers and Taoist-priests were driven to refine “elixir of life” at that
time, and in doing so, the formulations of gunpowder were gradually invented. By the
Sui Dynasty (581−618 A.D.), a form of gunpowder made from saltpeter, sulfur and
charcoal dust had been developed very maturely. During the Tang Dynasty (618−907
A.D.), a black gunpowder formally came into being, whose proportion formula of
“one saltpeter, two sulfurs and three charcoals” was adopted to greatly improve
the efficiency of rapid combustion and explosion, and thus the military fire-arrows
filled with the black gunpowder was developed. The gunpowder originated from the
formulation of making the elixir and was ever used as a medicine. In Compendium of
Materia Medica written by Shizhen Li (1518−1593 A.D.) during the Ming Dynasty,
gunpowder had been used to treat psoriasis, insecticide, dampness and plague.
In ancient Chinese classics, the word “rocket” has wide meanings, which is
different from the modern rocket, a space vehicle that carries its own propellant
and uses the principle of jet propulsion to fly. The ancient rockets, as actual weapons
applied to military wars, could be divided into three types in accordance with their
different design principles and application effects and ranges: classical arson firearrows, gunpowder arson fire-arrows and jet fire-arrows. It was reported that the
classical arson fire-arrows, which were the incendiary agents made from rosin, oil,