Rocketry

“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.” — Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Rocketry — the science of propelling vehicles using the reaction principle — broke the final barrier: gravity itself. Rockets carried weapons across continents and, eventually, carried humanity beyond the atmosphere and into space.

Unlocks

• Wonders: Apollo Program
• Units: Mobile SAM

Historical Background

The Chinese invented gunpowder rockets as early as the 13th century, using them as weapons and signals. But modern rocketry began with three visionary pioneers working independently: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Russia (who derived the rocket equation in 1903), Robert Goddard in America (who launched the first liquid-fuelled rocket in 1926), and Hermann Oberth in Germany (whose theoretical work inspired a generation of engineers). Their ideas were realised on a terrifying scale during the Second World War, when Wernher von Braun’s V-2 rocket became the first long-range guided ballistic missile, striking London and Antwerp from launch sites hundreds of kilometres away.

After the war, captured V-2 technology and German engineers fuelled the space programmes of both the United States and the Soviet Union. The Space Race that followed was as much a contest of ideology as of engineering. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 and put Yuri Gagarin into orbit in 1961; the United States responded with the Apollo Program, landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon on 20 July 1969. Rocketry also produced the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), capable of delivering nuclear warheads anywhere on Earth in minutes, and surface-to-air missile systems that could defend against aircraft at ranges and altitudes beyond the reach of conventional guns.