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Period: Jan 1, 1232 to
Rocket history
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Feb 1, 1232
The Chinese Rocket
The very first rocket, the chineese used 'fire arrows' which was a tube of gun powder attached onto an arrow -
Polish artillery expert
A polish artillery expert called, Kazimierz Siemienowicz, published a series of drawings for a staged rocket. -
Robert Anderson
In 1696, Robert Anderson, an Englishman, published a two-part instruction on how to make rocket molds, prepare the propellants, and perform the calculations. -
Animals to Space
Claude Ruggieri, an Italian living in Paris, put small animals onto rockets and flew then into space. -
Rockets to Europe
By then rockets were used only as weapons. Enemy troops in India attacked the British with rockets. Later in Britain, a man called William Congreve developed a rocket that could fire 9,000 feet. The British fired Congreve rockets against the United States in the war. -
New Propellents
A Russian school teacher called Tsiolkovsky published a report in 1903 that suggested the use of liquid propellants for rockets in order to achieve greater range. -
Wright Brothers
On December 17, 1903, two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, named Wilbur and Orville Wright, were successful in flying an airplane they built. Their powered aircraft flew for 12 seconds above the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. -
American Rockets
Years later at their Peenemuende Research Facility in Germany, the s, under the technical direction of Von Braun, developed the V-2 Rocket. The V-2 became one of the best known of all early missiles. The 46-foot rocket utilized alcohol and liquid oxygen as fuel and could carry a 1,650 pound warhead 225 miles. Some historians have estimated that by the end of World War II, the Germans had fired nearly 3,000 V-2 weapons against England and other targets. -
First astronaut
In 1961, Marshall's Mercury-Redstone vehicle boosted the America's first astronaut, Alan B. Shepard on a suborbital flight. -
Saturn Rocket
The Marshall Center's first major program was development of the Saturn rockets. The Saturn V, first launched on November 9, 1967, was the most powerful member of the Saturn family producing as much power as 85 Hoover Dams. -
To the moon
The crowning achievement for the Saturn V rocket came when it launched Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon in July 1969. -
First space station
In 1973, Skylab, America's first space station, was launched aboard a two-stage Saturn V vehicle. Saturn IB rockets were used to launch three different three-man crews to the Skylab space station.