Tsiolkovsky's Cosmic Philosophy

"All the Universe is full of the life of perfect creatures." (Tsiolkovsky-The Scientific Ethics. Kaluga,1930, p.20).

Tsiolkovsky was very much as interested in the philosophy of space as he was with the engineering needed to make space flight possible. This was the very begining of Tsiolkovsky's research into space flight problems and was the basis for it. His main work of this subject was "Ethics or the Natural Foundations of Morality" (1902-1918). In 1932 Tsiolkovsky wrote "The Cosmic Philosophy" - the summary of his philosophical ideas. His main idea was to achieve happiness not only for humanity, but also for all the living beings in the Cosmos, for all the Universe. He believed that human occupation of space was inevitable and would drive human evolution.

According to Tsiolkovsky's Cosmic Philosophy, "happiness" is the absence of all kind of suffering in all the Universe, for all times, as well as the absence of all of the processes for destroying goodness. How shall we start this evolution to the "Universial Happiness"? The main task is to study the laws which rule the Universe. To do so, we must study the Universe, and therefore we must learn how to live in outer space. To begin that long period of our evolution, we will have to design large manned space rockets. So, the first space flight will be the beginning of the new era of space exploration, the beginning of Space Culture in human history. It will be the beginning of our history itself. He truly beleived that it was the destiny of humankind to occupy the solar system and then to expand into the depth of the cosmos, living off the energy of the stars to create a cosmic civilization that would master nature, abolish natural catastrophes, and acheive happiness for all.

1n 1926 Tsiolkovsky defined his "Plan of Space Exploration", consisting of sixteen steps for human expansion into space:

1) Creation of rocket airplanes with wings.

2) Progressively increasing the speed and altitude of these airplanes.

3) Production of real rockets-without wings.

4) Ability to land on the surface of the sea.

5) Reaching excape velocity (about 8 Km/second), and the first flight into Earth orbit.

6) Lengthening rocket flight times in space.

7) Experimental use of plants to make an artificial atmosphere in spacships.

8) Using pressurized space suits for activity outside of spaceships.

9) Making orbiting greenhouses for plants.

10) Constructing large orbital habitats around the Earth.

11) Using solar radiation to grow food, to heat space quarters, and for transport throughout the Solar System.

12) Colonization of the asteroid belt.

13) Colonization of the entire Solar System and beyond.

14) Acheivement of individual and social perfection.

15) Overcrowding of the Solar System and the colonization of the Milky Way (the Galaxy).

16) The Sun begins to die and the people remaining in the Solar System's population go to other suns.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was a true visionary and pioneer of astronautics. He theorized many aspects of human space travel and rocket propulsion decades before others, and played an important role in the development of the Soviet and Russian space programs.
He was born on September 17,1857, in the village of Ijevskoe, Ryasan Province, Russia, the son a a Polish forester who had emigrated to Russia. He was not from a rich family, but a very large one; Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had 17 brothers and sisters. At the age of 10 he lost his hearing as the result of scarlet fever. After that he couldn't attend school, and he never recieved any formal education. The knowledge and education he attained were acheived by himself. His books were his teachers, and he read every book in his father's library. Tsiolkovsky later remembered that his hearing loss influenced greatly his future life: during all his life he tried to prove to himself and to others that he was better and more clever than others, even with his disability.
In 1873-1876 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky lived in Moscow. During this time he visited the main Moscow libraries, among them the well known Pashkov House Library. It was in this fashion that he received his self-education. While in Moscow, Tsiolkovsky was tutored by the eccentric and brilliant Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorovitch Fedorov, who was working in a Moscow library at the time. Fedorov was a leading proponent of Russian Cosmism, and gave Tsiolkovsky a place to work in the library. In many ways, he took the place of the university lecturers that Tsiolkovsky never had access to. At the age of17, while living in Moscow, he first dreamed about the possibility of space flight. He was, in part, inspired by the novels of Jules Verne. Since that time he started to think about the problems of space vehicle design. His great purpose was not simply to go into outer space, but to live in space, for humainity to become a space civilization.
In 1876-1879, after his coming back to his father's home, he lived in Vyatka and Ryasan. After passing his exams, he recieved his Teacher's Certificate, and went to work as a math teacher in Borovsk, Kaluga Province.
In 1880-1892 Tsiolkovsky lived in Borovsk and worked as a teacher. At that time he began his scientific research in air baloon building, life in free space, aerodynamics and philosophy. It was also at that time that he married. His wife, Barbara E. Sokolova, was the daughter of the local preacher. Together, they had 3 daughters and 4 sons.
In 1892-1935 he lived and worked in Kaluga. His moving to Kaluga was the result of a teaching promotion. He lived in the house that is now a part of the museum complex with his family from the year 1904 until his death in 1935. It was here in Kaluga that he became a well known scientist, and where he wrote and published his theories of space flight and inter-planetary travels. In Kaluga he wrote his Cosmic Philosophy, and he dreamed about the far distant future of humanity, including the eventual conquest of space and our leaving the cradle of the planet Earth for the stars. He was made a member of the Soviet Academy of Science in 1919.
He received a government pension in 1920, and continued to work and write about space. Upon the publication of the works of German rocket pioneer Herman Oberth in 1923, his works were revised and published more widely, and he finally earned some international recognition for his ideas. He wrote over 500 scientific papers, and, even though he never created any rockets himself, he influenced many young Russian engineers and designers. Tsiolkovsky lived to see a younger generation of Russian engineers and scientists begin to make his visionary concepts reality. Among these was Sergey Korolev, who would become the "Chief Designer" of the Soviet space program, who launched humanity into space with Sputnik, Laika, and the launch of the first cosmonaut,Yuri Gagarin.


Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, the father of cosmonautics, died in Kaluga at the age of 78 on September 19,1935. He received an honored State funeral from the Soviet government. He was buried in the old Kaluga Cemetery, not far from the Museum that honors his life and work.


The tomb of Tsiolkovsky in the Old Kaluga Cemetery, near the Museum.

History of Space Travel

"The earth is the cradle of mankind - one cannot remain in the cradle forever" -- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Working Out the Theory
To design and build a spacecraft, you need to be able to figure out how big to make it, how heavy it can be, how fast it will have to go, how much fuel it needs and so forth. For that, you need a theory of how objects move in space and how to make the calculations. Almost all theory of space flight was worked out by three brilliant men over a period of nearly three centuries - from 1600 to 1900.

Johannes Kepler -
was the German mathematician who, in 1609, figured out the equations for orbiting planets & satellites. In particular, he determined that the planets move in ellipses (flattened circles) rather than true circles.
Isaac Newton -
in 1687 he wrote what is probably the single greatest intellectual achievement of all time. In a single book he established the basic laws of force, motion, and gravitation and invented a new branch of mathematics in the process (calculus). He did all this to show how the force of gravity is the reason that planet?s orbits follow Kepler?s equations.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky -
a Russian school teacher who, without ever launching a single rocket himself, was the first to figure out all the basic equations for rocketry - in 1903! From his very broad and extensive reading, including Jules Verne?s "From the Earth to the Moon", he concluded that space travel was a possibility, that it was in fact man?s destiny, and that rockets would be the way to pull it off.
He anticipated and solved many of the problems that were going to come up for rocket powered flight and drew up several rocket designs. He determined that liquid fuel rockets would be needed to get to space, and that the rockets would need to be built in stages (he called them "rocket trains"). He concluded that oxygen and hydrogen would be the most powerful fuels to use. He had predicted how, 65 years later, the Saturn V rocket would operate for the first landing of men on the moon.


Building the First Rockets - Robert Goddard
An American who is now called "the father of modern rocketry"
By contrast to Tsiolkovsky, Goddard was the man who designed, built, and flew the rockets. He was a university professor who also developed the theory of rocketry and although he didn't know about Tsiolkovsky's work, reached the same conclusions as Tsiolkovsky did. Goddard proved the theory was true.
He was also heavily influenced by the science fiction of Jules Verne, and he worked hard to develop rockets because he wanted to see them take us into space.
When he first published his superbly written study, proposing that rockets could possibly be used to travel to the moon, people thought he was a nut. In fact, the criticism was so harsh, Goddard maintained a low profile and said little about his work after that.
In 1926 he launched the world?s first liquid fueled rocket. In the course of his experiments in Massachusetts and Roswell, New Mexico, he virtually developed the entirety of rocket technology.
He invented everything required for modern rocketry and earned over 200 patents. By himself he developed the same components and designs that took the Germans hundreds of scientists and engineers and millions of dollars to develop independently at Peenemunde during World War II.

Convincing the World - Hermann Oberth
Yet another one who, after reading Jules Verne?s "From Earth to the Moon" as a young boy (age 11 in this case), became determined to find a way to travel space. He independently determined the same rocketry principles as Tsiolkovsky and Goddard.
The difference with Oberth is that in 1929 he published "The Rocket Into Interplanetary Space", a highly influential book which was internationally acclaimed and persuaded the world that the rocket was something to take seriously as a space vehicle.
Oberth was also Wernher Von Braun?s teacher, bringing him into the German rocket program.
Of the three great rocketry pioneers, Oberth was the only one who lived to see men travel through space and land on the moon.

Taking Man Into Space - Wernher Von Braun
Together with Oberth and an enormous team of scientists and engineers at Peenemunde, he developed and launched the German V2 rocket, the first rocket capable of reaching space.
At the end of World War II, Von Braun led the top scientists and engineers out of Germany to the Americans (he didn't want to be captured by the Russians).
He led the US development of military and space exploration rockets. Von Braun was crucial in the effort to convince the US government to pursue a landing of men on the moon, and guided US efforts to success.
He led the development of the Saturn rockets, the only series of rockets ever developed to have worked perfectly on every launch (that is, never blew up on the pad). If he hadn?t been so successful, we may never have made it to the moon.