“Collected Works of K. E. Tsiokovskiy”
Volume II
“Reactive Flying Machines”
Academy of Sciences USSR
1948
“Mankind will not remain forever confined to the Earth. In pursuit of light and spacej it will, timidly at first probe, the limits of the atmosphere and later extend its control to the entire solar system.” K. Tsiolkovskiy (from a letter written by K. E. Tsiolkovskiy to B. N. Vorob’yev 19 August 1911)
K. E. Tsiolkovskiy – the Founder of Modern Rocket Dynamics
Rocket engineering is one of the most important fields of twentieth-century scientific and technical progress.
During World War II the development of reaction propulsion systems was given particular impetus. Rocket batteries, long-range missiles, air-breathing torpedos, and Jet aircraft all appeared on the battlefield.
Since the war jet fighters have almost completely displaced propeller-driven fighter planes. As a rule, new high-speed aircraft are all designed with jetengines. Rockets are used to investigate
the composition, temperature, and motions of the upper layers of the atmosphere, as well as the propagation of radio waves and solar emission spectra at high altitudes. In fact, scientific and technical journals are now seriously debating the problem of developing a rocket that could launch an artificial earth satellite.
To solve the problems of rocket engineering, we have mobilized resources of science and industry undreamed of in previous eras of technological development. The study of the laws of motion of reaction- propelled bodies is becoming an urgent problem of modern mechanics.
The chief founder of the theory of reaction propulsion, the creator of the principles on which the development of this new field of science is based, was the renowned scientist, inventor and thinker Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky.
The motion of reaction-propelled bodies is more complicated than the motion of propeller aircraft and artillery projectiles. The most important of the complicating factors is the considerable change in the mass of the body during flight.*
The change in the mass of reaction-propelled bodies during flight makes it impossible to employ the formulas of classical me- chanics, the theoretical basis for calculating the motion of bodies of constant mass.
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