Goddard’s claim that rockets could be used to send objects as far as the Moon was widely ridiculed in the public press, including The New York Times (which published a retraction on July 17, 1969, the day after the launch of the first crewed mission to the Moon). In his 1904 high-school graduation speech, he stated that “it is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.” Goddard received his first two patents for rocket technology in 1914, and, with funding from the Smithsonian Institution, he published a theoretical treatise, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, in 1919. Even as a young man, he dedicated himself to working on spaceflight. In the United States, Robert Hutchings Goddard became interested in space exploration after reading works such as The War of the Worlds. He never complemented his writings with practical experiments in rocketry, but his work greatly influenced later space and rocket research in the Soviet Union and Europe. Up to his death in 1935, Tsiolkovsky continued to publish sophisticated studies on the theoretical aspects of spaceflight. In 1903 his article “Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices” laid out many of the principles of spaceflight. The first person to study in detail the use of rockets for spaceflight was the Russian schoolteacher and mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. By the beginning of the 20th century, the centuries-old technology of rockets had advanced to the point at which it was reasonable to consider their use to accelerate objects to a velocity sufficient to enter orbit around Earth and even to escape Earth’s gravity and travel away from the planet. In order to translate these fictional images of space travel into reality, it was necessary to devise some practical means of countering the influence of Earth’s gravity. Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune (1865 From the Earth to the Moon) and Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) and The First Men in the Moon (1901) used sound scientific principles to describe space travel and encounters with alien beings. Wells infused their stories with descriptions of outer space and of spaceflight that were consistent with the best understanding of the time. Two centuries later the French author Jules Verne and the English novelist and historian H.G. For example, the French satirist Cyrano de Bergerac in the 17th century wrote Histoire comique des états et empires de la lune (1656) and Histoire comique des états et empires du soleil (1662 together in English as A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Solar World, 1754), describing fictional journeys to the Moon and the Sun. Some dreamed of leaving Earth to explore other worlds. Since ancient times, people around the world have studied the heavens and used their observations and explanations of astronomical phenomena for both religious and practical purposes. SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!.Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them! Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.Britannica Beyond We’ve created a new place where questions are at the center of learning.100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.COVID-19 Portal While this global health crisis continues to evolve, it can be useful to look to past pandemics to better understand how to respond today.Student Portal Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more.Britannica Explains In these videos, Britannica explains a variety of topics and answers frequently asked questions.Demystified Videos In Demystified, Britannica has all the answers to your burning questions.This Time in History In these videos, find out what happened this month (or any month!) in history.#WTFact Videos In #WTFact Britannica shares some of the most bizarre facts we can find.Britannica Classics Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives.
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