FIRST STEPS TOWARD SPACE - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

276 SMITHSONIAN ANNALS OF FLIGHT
well as in the Press—your merits and your indisputable priority
in the development of this great idea. 16
The same sentiments were expressed in letters
from the Head of the Reactive Scientific Research
Institute, in one of which it was stated:
It is no mystery that most of the workers now engaged in
rocketry became acquainted for the first time with the fundamentals
of reaction propulsion in your wonderful books,
learned from them, were infected with your enthusiasm and
confidence that our cause will be crowned with success. 17
But for most people the name of K. E. Tsiolkovskiy
was, as before, associated principally with
aeronautics and dirigibles. Such an estimation of
his activities can be seen in the press report on
his death (19 September 1935). 18 His works in the
field of rocket engineering were not mentioned
either in this press report or in the decision of
the government on the perpetuation of the memory
of K. E. Tsiolkovskiy. 19 .
Another decade passed. The attitude toward
rocket engineering changed fundamentally. World
War II, which had just ended, clearly showed what
possibilities were associated with solid-propellant
and, to a greater extent, with liquid-propellant
rockets. Then only was the great scientist mainly
referred to as the founder of the theory of jet
propulsion and a pioneer in rocket engineering,
whereas his involvement in the problems of aeronautics
was almost buried in oblivion.
Another 10 to 15 years passed. The notion about
the potentialities of rocketry during this time
changed fundamentally again. What seemed, even
recently, to be a matter of a very distant future,
became a today's reality. Artificial Earth satellites
and spacecraft, were launched in the USSR and
USA, automatic stations were sent toward the
Moon, Mars, and Venus, and man's flight into
outer space was ultimately realized.
So the notion about Tsiolkovskiy changes again.
Before us, in all its grandeur, arises the figure of the
founder of cosmonautics, of the first man who had
the courage to announce that "mankind will not
stay on the Earth forever," and who proved this
point scientifically. Now K. E. Tsiolkovskiy is
mainly spoken of as a man who has shown the way
to the Universe, as the founder of the theory of
interplanetary travel, and his works on the theory
of reaction propulsion are considered only as a
specific problem in the theory of cosmonautics.
Perhaps this, too, may not be the final assessment
of the creative work of this amazingly gifted and
truly inexhaustible scientist. It is quite possible that
a time will come when our notions about him will
again undergo radical change. As our knowledge of
the Universe increases, a time will come when more
attention will be paid to his works on the cosmos,
and his works on the theory of interplanetary travel
will be considered only as a specific problem in the
general theory of mankind's conquest of the
Universe.
NOTES
1. K. E. Tsiolkovskiy, Grezy o Zemle i neve i effekty vsemirnogo
tyagoteniya [Visions of the Earth and the Sky, and
the Effects of Universal Gravitation] (Moscow 1895), p. 50.
2. Arkhiv AN, SSSR [Archives, USSR Academy of Sciences],
f. 555, op. 1, d. 32. 1.
3. Arkhiv AN, SSSR, f. 555, op. 1, d. 32. 1.
4. From Tsander's working notebook. Arkhiv AN, SSSR, f.
573, op. 2.
5. Arkhiv AN, SSSR, f. 573, op. 2.
6. R. Esnault-Pelterie. "Consideration sur les resultats de
l'allegement indefini des moteurs" [Considerations concerning
the results of the indefinite lightening of motors]. Journal de
Physique Theoretique et Appliquee. ser. 5, vol. 3, March
1913, pp. 218-30.
7. From autobiography of Yu. V. Kondratyuk in "Interplanetary
Travel" (in Russian), by N. A. Rynin (Leningrad,
1932), issue 8.
8. The manuscripts of Yu. V. Kondratyuk were released by
the author to the well-known historian of aviation B.-N.
Vorob'yev in July 1938. They are now kept in the Institute
of History of Natural Science and Technology of the USSR
Academy of Sciences.
9. This work was published for the first time in 1964. See
Pioneers in Rocket Engineering: Kibal'tchitch, Tsiolkovskiy,
Tsander, Kondratyuk. Selected Works (in Russian), compiled
and edited by B. N. Vorob'yev and V. N. Sokolskiy
(Moscow: Nauka, 1964).
10. Arkhiv AN, SSSR, f. 555, op. 1, d. 246, 1. 11 ob.
11. Ibid., 1. 11 ob.
12. Ibid., 1. 18.
13. Arkhiv AN, SSSR, f. 555, op. 1, d. 39.
14. Arkhiv AN, SSSR, f. 555, op. 1, d. 12.
15. Arkhiv AN, SSSR, f. 555, op. 1, d, 246, 1. 6 ob.
16. Translated from the German. The original is published
in Konstantin Eduardovitch Tsiolkovskiy, 1857-1932 (in Russian),
a jubilee collection dedicated to K. E. Tsiolkovskiy's
75th birthday and the 40th anniversary of the publication of
his first works on dirigibles (Moscow-Leningrad, 1932), p. 55.
17. From the correspondence between K. E. Tsiolkovskiy
and the Reactive Scientific Research Institute. Arkhiv AN,
SSSR, f. 555, op. 3, d. 108, 1. 14.
18. Izvestiya, no. 220 (5773), 20 September 1935.
19. Izvestiya, no. 221 (5774), 21 September 1935.