Astronautics—Its Development During the Second Century of the RAeS (1966–2066)

Extract

The Royal Aeronautical Society is now 102 years old, and astronautics has already existed as a technical discipline for some 70 of these years, even if one disregards its long pre-history of mythology, science-fiction, and vague speculation. Tsiolkovsky began to make his amazing and entirely serious scientific contributions just before the dawn of the twentieth century.

This suggestion that aeronautics and astronautics are much of an age would surprise many laymen, who are apt to accept literally the dating of the popular Press; this usually argues that the “Space Age” began with the launching of Sputnik I in 1957, disregarding even the first successful large rocket, the V2, which flew 15 years before Sputnik I. However, whether one argues that astronautics is already a septuagenarian, is in its vigorous and youthful twenties, or is not yet even a teenager, one must admit that its amazing development has occurred mostly in the last decade.