102
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
Li (701−762 A.D.), fantasied in his poetry Gu Feng that: as he was on the sea, he
would travel across sky in the fairyland, but the birds and chariots that took him to
the fairyland would not be found for some reason. Cheng’en Wu (1500−1583 A.D.),
a famous novelist in the Ming Dynasty, wrote in the novel Journey to the West:
Monkey King learned 72 changes, and could cover a hundred thousand miles by
making one “somersault cloud”; and thus, he would fly to the heavenly palace at any
time. Consequently, modern science did not come into being in China which had a
splendid and brilliant oriental civilization, but in Europe after the Renaissance. Justly
in this context, the scientific fictions on space flights were also quietly emerging in
the West.
3.2.4.2 European Renaissance and Exploration Age
During the Middle Ages (476−1453 A.D.), there was not a strong political power to
rule Europe, and thus the feudal separatism brought frequent wars, resulting in slow
or stagnant development of science and technology and productivity in the whole
of Europe. In Europe at that time, the classical civilization was almost smashed and
could not be recovered, and the religious theology controlled people’s spirit and
restricted academic and speech freedom, but Europe began to rise in poverty and
obscurity.
In 1271, Marco Polo (1254−1324), a young Italian merchant from Venice,
followed his father and uncle to the East along the Land Silk Road. They passed
through Mesopotamia, Iranian Plateau and Pamir Plateau, and finally arrived in
Dadu (now Beijing) of the Yuan Dynasty in 1275. Marco Polo traveled in China
for 17 years and served as an official of the Yuan Dynasty. He visited many regions
of China at that time, such as the southwest and southeast coastal regions. In 1292,
Marco Polo set out from Quanzhou city, Fujian Province, accompanied together
with three envoys of the Yuan Dynasty to escort Princess Kuokuo Zhen through the
Maritime Silk Road to Persia to get married. And finally, in 1295, he returned to
his hometown Venice city, Italy. In 1298, there was a sea battle between Venice and
Genoa, two Italian city-states at war over control of trade routes in the Mediterranean
Sea. Marco Polo as a gentleman-commander of a galley in the Venetian navy joined
in the warfare. Unfortunately, he was captured and put into a Genoese prison, where
he met a fellow prisoner named Rustichello da Pisa, a sailor from Venice, who was
an Italian romance writer. Marco told Rustichello the incredible stories that he had
ever traveled through West Asia, Persia, India, China and other cities and countries
between 1271 and 1295. Marco was released within a year due to his fame as an
adventurer and then was little known of his life after his return to Venice. Rustichello
recorded Marco’s traveling stories in detail and later published the well-known travelogue, The Travels of Marco Polo, a book that described to Europeans the then
wonderful culture and inner workings of the Eastern world, including the wealth and
large territory of the Yuan Dynasty and its capital Dadu, giving a first comprehensive
look into China, India, Japan and other Asian cities and countries. As a result, the
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
Li (701−762 A.D.), fantasied in his poetry Gu Feng that: as he was on the sea, he
would travel across sky in the fairyland, but the birds and chariots that took him to
the fairyland would not be found for some reason. Cheng’en Wu (1500−1583 A.D.),
a famous novelist in the Ming Dynasty, wrote in the novel Journey to the West:
Monkey King learned 72 changes, and could cover a hundred thousand miles by
making one “somersault cloud”; and thus, he would fly to the heavenly palace at any
time. Consequently, modern science did not come into being in China which had a
splendid and brilliant oriental civilization, but in Europe after the Renaissance. Justly
in this context, the scientific fictions on space flights were also quietly emerging in
the West.
3.2.4.2 European Renaissance and Exploration Age
During the Middle Ages (476−1453 A.D.), there was not a strong political power to
rule Europe, and thus the feudal separatism brought frequent wars, resulting in slow
or stagnant development of science and technology and productivity in the whole
of Europe. In Europe at that time, the classical civilization was almost smashed and
could not be recovered, and the religious theology controlled people’s spirit and
restricted academic and speech freedom, but Europe began to rise in poverty and
obscurity.
In 1271, Marco Polo (1254−1324), a young Italian merchant from Venice,
followed his father and uncle to the East along the Land Silk Road. They passed
through Mesopotamia, Iranian Plateau and Pamir Plateau, and finally arrived in
Dadu (now Beijing) of the Yuan Dynasty in 1275. Marco Polo traveled in China
for 17 years and served as an official of the Yuan Dynasty. He visited many regions
of China at that time, such as the southwest and southeast coastal regions. In 1292,
Marco Polo set out from Quanzhou city, Fujian Province, accompanied together
with three envoys of the Yuan Dynasty to escort Princess Kuokuo Zhen through the
Maritime Silk Road to Persia to get married. And finally, in 1295, he returned to
his hometown Venice city, Italy. In 1298, there was a sea battle between Venice and
Genoa, two Italian city-states at war over control of trade routes in the Mediterranean
Sea. Marco Polo as a gentleman-commander of a galley in the Venetian navy joined
in the warfare. Unfortunately, he was captured and put into a Genoese prison, where
he met a fellow prisoner named Rustichello da Pisa, a sailor from Venice, who was
an Italian romance writer. Marco told Rustichello the incredible stories that he had
ever traveled through West Asia, Persia, India, China and other cities and countries
between 1271 and 1295. Marco was released within a year due to his fame as an
adventurer and then was little known of his life after his return to Venice. Rustichello
recorded Marco’s traveling stories in detail and later published the well-known travelogue, The Travels of Marco Polo, a book that described to Europeans the then
wonderful culture and inner workings of the Eastern world, including the wealth and
large territory of the Yuan Dynasty and its capital Dadu, giving a first comprehensive
look into China, India, Japan and other Asian cities and countries. As a result, the