2_sem_английский / Doc26

TEXT 16A

K. E. TSIOLKOVSKY

(1857-1935)

« Mankind will not remain on earth forever. These words, an axiom of the new science of I astronautics, were spoken at the beginning of the 20th century by K. E. Tsiolkovsky.

Tsiolkovsky was a self-taught man. In his childhood be lost his hearing but this did not prevent him from acquiring knowledge. With endless patience his mother went on teaching him, f and after her death he began studying by himself.

On reaching a point where reading books at home could teach no more, the sixteen year old boy went to Moscow where he continued his studies in libraries and lecture rooms.

For three years lie studied physics, astronomy, mechanics and geometry with the problems of flights and interplanetary travel in his mind. Having come across the law of action and reaction § and the law of persistence of the centre of gravity he realized that these two laws together constituted the solution of cosmic flight problems. Seventy years before the appearance of the f multi- stage rocket it was a tremendous step forward.

After having completed courses, he obtained the post of a mathematics master at school where lie taught for nearly 40 years.

The main problem Tsiolkovsky had been working at for many years was creating a theory of interplanetary travel. At the time when man first rose into the air, he proposed rockets for interplanetary communication. In his work «The study of cosmic space by rocket engines which is often referred to by many scientists everywhere in the world, K. Tsiolkovsky put forward a scientifically well-founded theory of cosmic flights. The ideas presented in this work served as I basis for the development of astronautics. He laid the foundation of all subsequent rocket I theories, proved the rocket to be the very ship upon which the man would be able to leave the 1 earth penetrating into boundless spaces and outlined bis design of the first jet-driven flying | machine. It was Tsiolkovsky who suggested the idea of a multi-stage rocket and of a man-made satellite which could serve as a laboratory' for studying the universe.

This man who had neither forerunners nor experience, who had no model to follow, never- 1 thelcss succeeded in producing a workable design for a liquid cooled rochet combustion chamber. And the first man- made satellite was taken into the skies by a type of a rocket designed by f Tsiolkovsky many years ago. Moreover, the orbit along which the satellite sped had been also calculated by him. Realization of many of the projects due to Tsiolkovsky became possible only I in our days. Ilis dream that«man kind must not remain eternally on the earth* is now a reality. I Tsiolkovsky understood that to realize his dream the efforts of many people were necessary'.

The rocket the shape of which he had shown to the world was produced in practical form by h is successors: scientists, designers and engineers. Due to Tsiolkovsky’s work being successful scientists and inventors created manned space ships.