This aerospace history course will take you back in time and trace the many developments in technology that transformed rockets from celebratory accouterments to weapons and finally to launchpads for human space travel. It is a story of technology, but ultimately the emphasis on this course is about people. Some are very well-known, but others not so.
You will learn how the Chinese introduced rockets as weapons, how early experimenters succeeded through trial and error, how scientific advancement provided the foundation for rocket development and space travel, and how rocket use spread throughout the world prior to the modern era. Finally, you will be introduced to the contributions of rocket pioneers such as Tsiolkovsky, Oberth and Goddard who dreamed of and paved the way for space travel. The course culminates with an introduction of German rocket development in the early 1930s and the emergence the genius rocket engineer Wehner von Braun.
What you'll learn:
- The technical evolution of early rocket development
- The contributions of the early rocket pioneers
- How the advancement of science and the laws of motion impacted rocket development
- How fiction influenced the modern rocket pioneers
- The contributions of the modern rocket pioneers and their predictors for rocket development