History of Rockets

First steam engine

1 CE

In the first century Heron of Alexandria created the first steam engine. it worked by pressurising the air inside a small sphere using steam and sending the air out of two holes making it spin

First rocket

1200

In the 13th century the Chinese created the first rockets using gunpowder as a fuel. They were mainly used for fire works and explosives.

Galileo's ideas about motion.

1500

Galileo discovered that motion must be caused by force and thus must be stopped by force.

Isaac Newtons Laws of motion

1600

Isaac newton created 3 laws of motion that explained how things move. these laws revolutionised how we think of the world and contributed to rockets greatly.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

1800

He designed the first liquid power rocket.

Robert Godard

1900

Created the first liquid powered rocket

V2 Rocket

1940

In world War 2 Germany created the vengeance or V1 and V2 rockets. these were designed by Von Braun and were fired at Britain to create panic

First men in space

1962

The Russians were the first to send a man into space. he complete a whole orbit of the earth before coming back down to earth safley

First man on the moon

1969

In 1969 Americans sent the first people to the moon on the Saturn V and Apollo XI. it took them three days to get to the moon and once they landed the module only had 30 seconds of fuel left.

The Space Shuttle

1980

The space shuttle was revolutionary for its time because it was the first reusable form of space travel. Where earlier rockets had a landing capsule which was the only part of the rocket that survived the space shuttle can land horizontally on a runway and be flown again