Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin E

 Germany was not the only country with scientists studying theoretical space travel. In the Soviet Union a man by the name of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky also study similar concepts. His first published work dating back to 1879, was a drawing depicting the Solar System, with estimated distances noted, between objects. In 1883 Tsiolkovsky publish his first essay with a drawing on how humans could possibly live in space.

Tsiolkovsky would then focus on studying potential methods for space travel, with the use of something he called a Reactive Device, which was another name for a liquid fueled rocket. Tsiolkovsky even wrote mathematics for space travel, which is still used today, known as Tsiolkovsky Equation. Even though this was Russian, it was still twenty years before the Germans started any of their own space travel research. At its time in 1903, it was the first theorical proof that space travel could exist. This was the same year that the wright brother took their first flight in an aircraft.

It took some time for Tsiolkovsky to develop his plans for space exploration, but it seems the invention of the airplane played an important role in how he thought space exploration would develop. He believed that with the invention of the airplane, that his Reactive Device would be used on an airplane to increase its speed and performance. This would be something similar to a Me 163 Komet or a BA-349 Natter. He believed that this field of rocketed winged flight would keep being studied, with vehicles ever increasing in performance. This would lead to the development of wingless rockets, with the ability to land on the ocean like we see today. After a safe process was put into place to land rockets on the ocean, Tsiolkovsky thought man’s next task would be to make rockets designed to reach the escape velocity of earth’s gravity and break free into space. After this many would gradually increase their length of time in space during flight. However, he believed we would be using plants to make breathable air on board spacecrafts as compared to the use of a machine to perform a synthetic chemical process. He still believed we would use space suits to do space walks, but also believed we would be colonizing earth’s orbits, with a series of floating green houses, acting as space stations. These green house space stations would be built in such a way that the plants inside would provide livable ecosystems for humans. Tsiolkovsky believed that these space habitats would become ever bigger, increasing inside in functions, with some being large enough to fulfill agricultural role. Other smaller space habitats would be able to use solar radiation to sail through space, much like how a sailboat crosses water, with the help of the wind. With sustainability achieved in both space living and travel methods, he believed mankind would go on to colonize the depth of space, starting with the asteroid belt first, and then expanding outwards. As the sun begins to die and turn into a red giant, we humans would be planets away, when earth is swallowed by the same star, that gave it life. This is what Tsiolkovsky believed. Later in his life Tsiolkovsky would come up with theories for a “Rocket Space Train,” which was an idea for a multi staged rocket. In 1932 he publishes his last piece, on a radio broadcast, where he stated that that he believed the first space flight would happen in twenty to thirty years. As he was separated from the rest of the world in the old Soviet Union, the Germans, were well on their way to developing many of the same theories and inventions that Tsiolkovsky imagined, with the first space flight happening twelve years later in Nazi Germany.