112
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
He was granted more than 200 patents on inventions in such fields as aviation and
aircraft-engine construction, and he made remarkable achievements in the theory of
space flight. His lectures and academic papers on the theory of aerospace science can
be compared with those of Tsiolkovsky, and are regarded as a symbol of the birth of
modern astronautics.
On November 8, 1881, Robert Esnault-Pelterie was born in Paris to a textile
industrialist. His father was a textile machinery manufacturer, so he had a strong
interest in machinery since he was a little boy. At the age of 13, he designed and
assembled a signal device for toy train; at the age of 17, he designed a physical
and chemical experiment and started to study radiotelegraph; at the age of 21, when
he graduated from the University of Paris with a degree in physics, he was granted
the first patent for invention, “An Electronic Delay Device with High Sensitivity”.
Esnault-Pelterie had a wide range of research fields, including metallurgy, electronics, magnetism, hydraulics and thermodynamics, and especially in the fields
of engineering technology, aviation and aerospace, he had made many pioneering
contributions.
In 1906 and 1907, Esnault-Pelterie built the world’s first monoplane and the first
radial aircraft engine and invented the airplane control system based on the control
stick. He worked on the theory of interplanetary navigation and calculated the most
advantageous flight trajectories for spacecraft. In the beginning of the twentieth
century, the isolated visionaries and thinkers sketched the sinews of the spaceflight
concept, but the technical details of rocketry and space travel had precarious credibility. Consequently, the usual all-knowing intellectuals of the day dismissed them
as ridiculous. Esnault-Pelterie was an accomplished engineer and also had the fame
of an aviation pioneer, and his credibility helped him to gain acceptance by mainstream scientific audiences. In 1912, he gave lectures on the theory of Astronautics
respectively in Saint Peterburg, Russia, and at the Physical Society of Paris, France.
As a scientist, he emphasized the importance of addressing the physical foundations
of spaceflight. On the basis of his lectures and presentations, he wrote and published
a paper “Consideration of the Results of the Unlimited Lightening of Motors” in the
Journal of Physics, French, in 1913, and at this time, he did not know Tsiolkovsky’s
1903 paper. He pointed out in his paper: as there is no air between the stars, airplanes
can not fly in the interstellar space; but the existing scientific knowledge tells us
that there is a motor that does not need air to support its flight, which is the rocket.
Esnault-Pelterie considered that the rocket works on the basis of the principle of
momentum conservation, and its exhausting jet stream is similar to bullet but has
continuity. Based on the law of conservation of momentum and energy, he derived the
rocket equation and got the escape velocity of the rocket as 11.28 km/s. He considered the energetic properties of guncotton, hydrogen–oxygen mixture, and radium
as propellants. Then he provided estimates of the required velocity increments and
flight times for travel to the Moon, Venus and Mars and requirements to the propellants for such missions. Considering the interplanetary flight of humans, he proposed
passive spacecraft temperature control. He divided it into three stages to launch the
rocket from the ground to the Moon. In the first stage, the rocket is accelerated to
reach the escape velocity to get rid of the gravity of the Earth, and the flight time of
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
He was granted more than 200 patents on inventions in such fields as aviation and
aircraft-engine construction, and he made remarkable achievements in the theory of
space flight. His lectures and academic papers on the theory of aerospace science can
be compared with those of Tsiolkovsky, and are regarded as a symbol of the birth of
modern astronautics.
On November 8, 1881, Robert Esnault-Pelterie was born in Paris to a textile
industrialist. His father was a textile machinery manufacturer, so he had a strong
interest in machinery since he was a little boy. At the age of 13, he designed and
assembled a signal device for toy train; at the age of 17, he designed a physical
and chemical experiment and started to study radiotelegraph; at the age of 21, when
he graduated from the University of Paris with a degree in physics, he was granted
the first patent for invention, “An Electronic Delay Device with High Sensitivity”.
Esnault-Pelterie had a wide range of research fields, including metallurgy, electronics, magnetism, hydraulics and thermodynamics, and especially in the fields
of engineering technology, aviation and aerospace, he had made many pioneering
contributions.
In 1906 and 1907, Esnault-Pelterie built the world’s first monoplane and the first
radial aircraft engine and invented the airplane control system based on the control
stick. He worked on the theory of interplanetary navigation and calculated the most
advantageous flight trajectories for spacecraft. In the beginning of the twentieth
century, the isolated visionaries and thinkers sketched the sinews of the spaceflight
concept, but the technical details of rocketry and space travel had precarious credibility. Consequently, the usual all-knowing intellectuals of the day dismissed them
as ridiculous. Esnault-Pelterie was an accomplished engineer and also had the fame
of an aviation pioneer, and his credibility helped him to gain acceptance by mainstream scientific audiences. In 1912, he gave lectures on the theory of Astronautics
respectively in Saint Peterburg, Russia, and at the Physical Society of Paris, France.
As a scientist, he emphasized the importance of addressing the physical foundations
of spaceflight. On the basis of his lectures and presentations, he wrote and published
a paper “Consideration of the Results of the Unlimited Lightening of Motors” in the
Journal of Physics, French, in 1913, and at this time, he did not know Tsiolkovsky’s
1903 paper. He pointed out in his paper: as there is no air between the stars, airplanes
can not fly in the interstellar space; but the existing scientific knowledge tells us
that there is a motor that does not need air to support its flight, which is the rocket.
Esnault-Pelterie considered that the rocket works on the basis of the principle of
momentum conservation, and its exhausting jet stream is similar to bullet but has
continuity. Based on the law of conservation of momentum and energy, he derived the
rocket equation and got the escape velocity of the rocket as 11.28 km/s. He considered the energetic properties of guncotton, hydrogen–oxygen mixture, and radium
as propellants. Then he provided estimates of the required velocity increments and
flight times for travel to the Moon, Venus and Mars and requirements to the propellants for such missions. Considering the interplanetary flight of humans, he proposed
passive spacecraft temperature control. He divided it into three stages to launch the
rocket from the ground to the Moon. In the first stage, the rocket is accelerated to
reach the escape velocity to get rid of the gravity of the Earth, and the flight time of