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The Route to the Stars
Fig. 1:
In the early 1930s, using
a trailer attached to his
Ford Model A,
Dr. Robert H. Goddard
transported his rocket to
the launch pad 15 miles
north-west of Roswell,
New Mexico.
Fig. 2:
Ariane 5
Fig. 3:
Konstantin Eduardowitsch
Tsiolkovsky
Fig. 4:
Robert Hutchings
Goddard
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Strictly speaking, space travel is a
development of the modern age,
but there were reports from
Byzantium of the first rockets as
early as 7 AD. Around 1200 AD
rockets were already being used
by the military. The first reliable
reports originate from China in
1232. It has been proved that
rockets were used for the first
time in Europe in 1241, at the
Battle of Liegnitz. And the multitalented
Leonardo da Vinci drew
a design for a rocket. The signal
rocket was invented around 1819.
Space exploration really took off
at the start of the 20 th century.
Today, a handful of men are renowned
as space pioneers. They
are discoverers and enthusiasts as
well as inventors. And they devote
their whole lives to their
ideas. The Russian Konstantin E.
Tsiolkovsky, the American Robert
H. Goddard and the Transylvanian
German Hermann Oberth took
the first steps on the long route
to the universe. Eugen Sänger
and Wernher von Braun realized
many of the ideas postulated.
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Innovation 16, Carl Zeiss AG, 2005