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Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright Author's personal copy Acta Astronautica 77 (2012) 131–137 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Acta Astronautica journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro Was the rocket invented or accidentally discovered? Some new observations on its origins$ Frank H. Winter a,n, Michael J. Neufeld b, Kerrie Dougherty c a Independent Scholar, 9525 Draycott Court, Burke, VA 22015, USA b National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, DC, USA c Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia article info abstract Article history: The history of spaceflight would not have been possible without a single object, the Received 13 January 2012 rocket—one of the most complex engineering feats in human history. However, a closer Received in revised form examination of the earliest history of the basic rocket, a gunpowder-propelled device 9 March 2012 developed in China around 900 years ago, suggests that it originated as an accidental Accepted 13 March 2012 discovery rather than as a deliberately planned invention. This paper will examine the evidence in support of the idea of accidental discovery, including new observations on Keywords: the earliest concepts of rocket motion, not only in China but also in the West. Rocket & 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. China Taoism Newton Invention Discovery 1. Background programs thus required multiple inventions, along with the modern management tools of systems and human Aerospace historians such as Reynolds and Bizony factors engineering, to be successful. Of these multiple regard modern launch vehicles, including the recently inventions, the basic rocket is undoubtedly the oldest: but retired Space Shuttle and the earlier Saturn V that took was it really an invention? (The standard Webster’s the first humans to the Moon, as among the most complex dictionary definition of an invention is: ‘The creation of feats of engineering in human history [1,2]. In the case of something not previously in existence’ that is the product the 363-ft (110.6 m) long Saturn V, the vehicle comprised of ‘purposeful experimentation leading to the develop- some 5,600,000 separate parts, all of which had to work ment of a new device or process’)[4]. perfectly to enable the rocket to carry out its mission. However, a large part of the complexity of the Apollo 2. The earliest Chinese rockets missions was in the extremely precise computerized sequencing of almost every mechanical, electrical, and The basic rocket has a history extending back about a other technical events throughout each mission in order millennium. Although we still do not know who first to achieve the planned accuracies of soft landings on the made the rocket, nor when nor how it was devised, there surface of the Moon [3]. The Apollo and Space Shuttle has been a long-held and commonly accepted belief that it originated in China. (Claims for India seem less credible for a lack of dateable documentation) [5]. Exhaustive and $ This paper was presented during the 62nd IAC in Cape Town. n ground-breaking researches by Dr. Joseph Needham and Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 703 249 8336. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (F.H. Winter), associated scholars studying ancient Chinese manuscripts, [email protected] (M.J. Neufeld), [email protected] (K. Dougherty). principally on alchemy, point to China’s Sung Dynasty 0094-5765/$ - see front matter & 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2012.03.014 Author's personal copy 132 F.H. Winter et al. / Acta Astronautica 77 (2012) 131–137 (960–1279 A.D.) as the likely period and place of the Even terms like fei huo tsiang (flying fire lances) are not origin of the rocket. Needham’s Science & Civilization in sufficient, as such devices may have been no more than China, volume V, part 7, is widely regarded as the best hand-thrown lances or spears with burning heads, or scholarship on the topic [6]. Partington’s history of Greek hand-held devices from which flames shot forth (mis- fire and gunpowder is also useful [7]. leadingly labeled as ‘flying fire’). It does not help matters The first rockets were very primitive and used a weak that huo chien is a term that later did come to mean a true form of gunpowder (the main ingredients being saltpeter rocket. To identify a true rocket-propelled device in the or potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal, although in early texts, it must be unequivocally described as operat- different proportions). In these early devices, gunpowder ing solely by self-propulsion. The question therefore has (also termed black powder) was simply tamped into to be: Is the device clearly described as flying or moving parchment or bamboo tubes, closed at one end to create by itself, either in the air or on the ground, without any a chamber, and opened, or partly opened, at the other end assistance from a man or another device (like a bow or so that the gases from the burning gunpowder composi- throwing stick)? Self-propulsion should be the only tion drove the rocket forward. Whether used as weapons rigidly held criterion. or amusement devices, these rockets were evidently The use of fei huo tsiang by the Chinese against the stabilized in their short and unsteady flights by having Mongols during the siege of Kai-fung-fu in 1232 is often the cylindrical rocket bodies attached to arrow shafts with cited in histories of rocketry and spaceflight as the first feathers at the rear. appearance of the rocket-or, more particularly, the ‘war Thus, in delving into the origins of the rocket, the most rocket.’ However, the previously-mentioned difficulty in important points we need to focus upon are: interpreting Chinese terminology applies to this and other alleged uses of Chinese rockets from this era. On firmer 1. How gunpowder originated, since the prerequisite ground is Needham’s description of a simple type of appearance of gunpowder was necessary first, before firework found in the Ch’in yeh-yu (Rustic Tales in Eastern the appearance of the rocket; Ch’i) by Chou Mi, dated to 1264. Called ‘ground rat’ (ti lao 2. How the rocket may have originated; shu) or ‘earth rat,’ the device described is a self-propelled, 3. How the movement of the rocket – its unique ability ground-crawling firework. It was simply a tube, ‘probably for self-propulsion – and also the nature of the com- of bamboo, filled with gunpowder and having a small bustion of gunpowder itself, were perceived by the orifice through which the gases could escape; then when Chinese. lit, it shot about in all directions on the floor at firework displays’ [6, pp. 12, 13, 135, 136]. A colorful description of this device is offered in the The Chinese work Wu Ching Tsung Yao (Collection of account of fireworks at the Emperor’s court, also during the Most Important Military Techniques), compiled from the Southern Sung Dynasty, as reported in the same 1040 to 1044 A.D. by the scholars Zeng Gongliang (the source, the Ch’in yeh-yu: ‘During the royal banquet in chief editor), with Ding Du and Yang Weide, is apparently the palace, the Empress-dowager was entertained by the the first book in history to record written formulas for Emperor (Li Chung [or Li Tsung]) with yen huo [fire gunpowder, or what Partington calls ‘proto-gunpowder’ crackers] fired in the court. Suddenly, a ground rat ran [7, p. 287]. Undertaken under the imperial order of the quickly to the Dowager and went beneath her chair. She Sung Emperor Renzong (ruled 1022–1063), the Wu Ching was so frightened and angered, that the banquet was Tsung Yao was compiled to provide information on all the called off. The responsible eunuchs were put in jail, and known techniques then used in warfare. It was secret and the Emperor apologized’ [6, pp. 12, 13, 135, 136]. therefore only limited editions were published. Under the Needham makes the point that the ‘ground rat’ type heading ‘method for making the fire-chemical’ (huo yao of firework ‘may well have been the origin of rocket fa), its gunpowder recipes contained not only saltpeter, propulsion’.1 He does not, however, take his explanation sulfur, and charcoal, but added ingredients like oils, further, except to give examples from the later work, the vegetable matter, and arsenic compounds. However, these Huo Lung Ching (The-Fire Drake [Artillery] Manual [of powder recipes only apply to crude bombs and there Gunpowder Weapons] of circa 1412, of weapons like the are no suggestions of any rockets, or rocket-like (i.e., ‘water-melon bomb’ (hsi kua phao) containing small reaction-propelled) devices in the Wu Ching Tsung Yao. multiple ‘earth- or ground rats’, which he calls ‘mini- Stronger gunpowder, with no additives and approximat- rockets’. He adds that during the second half of the 12th ing more modern recipes, appeared later, by the 13th century, there were actually two kinds of fireworks in century [6, pp.