The principle employed today in rockets and rocket trajectory was first tested close to 2000 years ago. It has however been less than 100 years since these machines started to be used for applications in space exploration (Bailey & Glithero, 2001) . Today, spacecraft are occasionally taken to the moon as well as other planets in the solar system by rockets. Closer home, rockets are able to take suppliers to the international space station on their own and still land back to earth on their own.
There are many different tales of rocket technology being used hundreds of years ago. For instance, in 400 BC, a Greek philosopher and mathematician –Archytas- constructed a wooden pigeon and suspended it on a wire. According to NASA Archytas’ pigeon would be pushed around with help from the escaping steam (NASA, 2019) . About three centuries after Archytas’ pigeon experiment, Hero’s engine also known as Aerolipite was invented by one Hero Alexandria. The Aerolipite was a spherically shaped device that placed on top of a pool of water. Gas coming from the steaming water moved inside the sphere and came out through two L-shaped tubes placed on the opposite side. The escaping steam created thrust which in turn made the sphere to rotate.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Historians, however, believe that the first real rocket was developed by the Chinese around the first century A.D (Bailey & Glithero, 2001) . These Chinese made rockets were however mostly used for colorful display during religious festivals in the same way modern world use fireworks. In the next hundreds of years, rockets would only be used as military weapons. For instance, the Congreve rocket was a military rocket developed in the early 1800s by the British military.
Reference
Bailey, M., & Glithero, J. (2001). The engineering and history of Rocket . York: National Railway Museum.
NASA (2019) . Brief History of Rockets . Retrieved from https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/TRC/Rockets/history_of_rockets.html
