“The Call of the Cosmos”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Original: “Путь к звездам. Сборник произведений”

Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow

1960

CONTENTS

FOREWORD. Translated by A. Shkarovsky
ON THE MOON. Translated by A. Shkarovsky
DREAMS OF EARTH AND SKY. Translated by D. Myshne
ON VESTA. Translated by A. Shkarovsky
OUTSIDE THE EARTH. Translated by V. Tulmy <. THE AIMS OF ASTRONAUTICS. Translated by X. Danko .
CHANGES IN RELATIVE WEIGHT. Translated by A. Shkarovsky
LIVING BEINGS IN THE COSMOS. Translated by X. Dunko .
BIOLOGY OF DWARFS AND GIANTS. Translaled by A. Shkarovsky
ISLAND OF ETHER. Translated by A. Shkarovsky
BEYOND THE EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE. Translated by A. Shkarovsky
B. N. VOROBYOV. SCIENCE FICTION IN TSIOLKOVSKY’S WRITINGS. Translated by A. Shkarovsky

Supplements
1. To Inventors of Reaction-Propelied Machines
2. Is This Mere Fantasy?
3. Pages from a Young Man’s Notebook

FOREWORD

Taken as a whole, this book makes interesting, even fascinating reading. Tsiolkovsky’s stories are of tremendous interest and urge us to ponder over the many purely specific problems of space travel. They will, undoubtedly, increase the number of enthusiasts in this branch of science and technology. His “On the Moon”, “Outside the Earth” and other stories afford hours of entertainment and leave a lasting impression.

Illustrated here is the world outlook of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, original thinker, self-taught scientist, founder and keen enthusiast of space travel. Though man is bound by every fibre to his home-planet, Tsiolkovsky argues that he stands to gain immeasurably by gradually conquering space. Life in space, where there is no acceleration of gravity in relation to manned spacecraft, or even on such objects as the Moon or the asteroids, where the gravity is negligible compared with the Earth’s, presents tremendous advantages, Tsiolkovsky claims, since with the same effort itis possible there to accomplish an incomparably greater amount of work. In addition, in the absence of disease-producing germs and drawing on the Sun’s continuous radiation, it will be possible to cultivate in artificial hothouses with temperature control and air-conditioning, various kinds of plants, which provide food for a human population and also consume the excreta of animal organisms.

The achievement of this balance between animal and plant life on mammoth space rockets, a balance which would make possible space journeys of indefinite duration, provided the consumption of solar energy is con- trolled, presents an extremely interesting idea that should be closely examined with a view to the possibility of actually putting it into practice.

One may also agree with Tsiolkovsky in thinking that life will develop and prosper wonderfully in the absence of gravity pull as well and that for anima! organisms atmospheric pressure can be much lower than what is usual and normal on the Earth. What he has to say about the different apparatus for making rocket travel comfortable in the absence of gravity, is most absorbing.

His descriptions of lunar landscapes, and journeys on the Moon, his fantastic stories about leaping lunar animals or beast-plants which either hide in crevices or try to keep abreast of the Sun to escape the approaching cold of the lunar nights, are most entrancing. Even these fantastic stories seem quite in place, because, for all their absolute improbability, they soften the picture we have of the harsh and rigorous natural conditions on the Moon.

However, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky lets his imagination run away with him, when he begins to describe the imaginary life of intelligent creatures on Mercury, Mars, the asteroids and other planets. Consequently, “Life in Space”, “On Vesta”, “Mercury”, “Mars”, “The Asteroids” and several other stories are fantasies of the first water, and where mention is made of intelligent beings on planets and asteroids no worthwhile information is desirable. Stories of this kind include his “Island of Ether’—about the structure and evolution of the Universe. Like the physicists of the nineteenth century, the author assumes that there exists “light ether” which, in his opinion, does not extend far beyond the limits of the material Universe accessible to us. Thus, in his opinion, our system of galaxies must be hopelessly isolated from other similar systems, as in the absence between them of an ether medium capable of transmitting light, they must be totally inaccessible to observation. These arbitrary assertions—and this should be emphasised do not at all coincide with Tsiolkovsky’s general outlook, since he considered that there were no limits to our cognition of the infinite Universe.

And even those of Tsiolkovsky’s writings, which are acceptable from the scientific point of view, contain several errors to which attention should be drawn.

In the first place, Tsiolkovsky does not sufficiently take into account that even in the case of diminished gravity the same inert mass remains, to which the same force must be applied to impart a definite acceleration as that applied on the Earth. Further, he overestimates the possibility of protecting a living organism from the excessive gravity which occur, for instance, during rocket acceleration, by immersing the living organism in an air-tight water bath. It is true, as Tsiolkovsky indicates, that the immersed organism would scarcely feel any violent blows on the outside of the vessel. But it would certainly feel intensive deceleration or acceleration of the vessel as a whole, and this might even prove fatal. The author completely underestimates the danger of collisions with meteorites and his descriptions of the way one might catch approaching bolides from the spacecraft, using something like a butterfly net, are most curious and can be attributed to his own typical brand of humour. Because in actual fact every time one of the host of micrometeorites whirring through space hits a spacecraft, it produces a minor explosion and is sure to dent the plating of the spaceship. These direct hits which should occur extremely often would almost immediately destroy the external green-house suggested by the author, which is shielded from its cosmic environment only by thin glass panes.

Even far from the Earth, where its gravitational pull exerts almost no influence, the relative speed at which the meteorite collides with the spacecraft will nevertheless be of the order of several kilometres, even tens of kilometres, a second. Hosts of meteorites thus would constitute a con- siderable danger to the safety of the spacecraft.

Various factors in some of Tsiolkovsky’s writings are occasionally wrongly appraised. For instance, he points out several times that the temperature in the focus of mirrors concentrating the Sun’s rays of a definite intensity will reach 6000°C. Purely theoretically a temperature of this order is conceivable only when the Sun’s angular dimensions are magnified by mirrors to the dimensions of a complete sphere which, in practice, is not possible.

In accordance with the notions current at the time his stories were written, Tsiolkovsky speaks about each star being surrounded by a family of planets and all these planets being inhabited irrespective of their temperatures and other physical conditions. In his opinion—to which, incidentally, other authors have frequently subscribed – the living organism can be composed of any kind of elements able to produce liquid compounds at a given temperature. There is not even the slightest mention of the unique part played in the structure of the living organism by compounds of carbon with oxygen, hydrogen and also nitrogen, which require absolutely specific, strictly defined conditions. Neither did Tsiolkovsky think an atmosphere indispensable for organic life, presuming that organisms can produce and subsist on their own micro-atmospheres. There is no need to show the completely fantastic nature of such ideas.

Tsiolkovsky rendered a great service in so zealously advocating attempts to conquer outer space. But his fantasies in this direction knew no limits. He wanted to emphasise that mankind will of necessity migrate to other planets circling around some other sun, when our own Sun will have greatly cooled, which he thinks may happen in several million years from now. Of course, in Tsiolkovsky’s time the gravitational energy of compression was thought to be the sole means by which the Sun maintained radiation. However, to think today that the Sun may cool, in the direct sense of the word, is out of the question. It may, of course, ultimately pass into the category of white dwarf stars, which though of unusual density and having insignificant radiation, nevertheless have a high internal temperature. This process will require not millions but at least several thousands of millions of years. In some of his writings Tsiolkovsky suggests that the populations of the numerous planetary systems in various parts of the Universe establish associations or alliances of mutual assistance for promoting migrations to the most suitable planets, in order to avoid the dangers arising from their own suns “going out of commission”. Here Tsiolkovsky reaches the extreme limits of fantasy.

Actually life in outer space should be viewed as a rare exception, and not a universal rule. However, this in no way minimises the vast scientific and practical importance of Tsiolkovsky’s ideas about space exploration, on the threshold of which we now stand as a result of the tremendous Soviet scientific and technical achievements that have now ushered in a new era in the history of mankind.

The break through into space is proceeding along much the same lines as those which Tsiolkovsky forecast with such extraordinary insight so many decades ago. Tsiolkovsky was a most unique person and everything associated with him is of great interest. So though many of his statements are unacceptable today, they still serve as the best possible illustration of the fact that Tsiolkovsky was more than a designer of jet engines. In his dreams and scientific fiction he was already beginning to live in space.

ACADEMICIAN V. G. FESENKOV
Moscow, October, 1960

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“Selected Works (Second Edition). Konstantin Tsiolkovsky”

To the 150th of K.E. Tsiofkovsky birth

2006

Moscow

In this edition the principal works of K.E. Tsiolkovsky dealing with rocketry and the theory of interplanetary communications were published. These writings had brought him the priority as the founder of theoretical cosmonautics. The article by academician S.P. Korolyov (“On the Practical Significance of the Scientific and Engineering Prepositions of Tsiolkovsky in Rocketry”) had been premised to Tsiolkovsky’s works. The edition is devoted to 150-th anniversary of Tsiolkovsky’s birthday – 17-th of September 2007. For scientists and scientific community who are interested in the history of rocketry and cosmonautics.

Contents

From the Responsible Editor 5
Conversion Table
On the Practical Significance of the Scientific and Engineering Propositions of Tsiolkovsky in Rocketry (S.P Korolyov)

Tsiolkovsky’s Works
FROM THE MANUSCRIPT (“FREE SPACE”) (1883)
TSIOLKOVSKY’S FIRST DESCRIPTION OF HIS WIND TUNNEL (1897)
INVESTIGATION OF WORLD SPACES REACTIVE VEHICLES (1903)
INVESTIGATION OF WORLD SPACES BY REACTIVE VEHICLES (1911-1912)
INVESTIGATION OF WORLD SPACES BY REACTIVE VEHICLES (Supplement to first and second parts (1914)
THE SPACESHIP (1924-1926)
A HIGH-SPEED TRAIN (1927)
COSMIC ROCKET TRAINS (1929)
A NEW AEROPLANE (1929)
REACTIVE AEROPLANE (Taken from the large manuscript, (1930)
TO ASTRONAUTS (1930)
SEMI-REACTIVE STRATOPLANE (1932)
REACHING THE STRATOSPHERE (1932)
ASTROPLANE (1932)
THE ASTROPLANE AND THE MACHINES THAT PRECEDED IT (Manuscript dated 1933)
MAXIMUM ROCKET SPEED (From the manuscript dated 1935)
The life and work of Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky (V.N. Sokolsky)

FROM THE RESPONSIBLE EDITOR

The 21st century manifests the continuing great advancement in science and technology, specifically in exploration and utilization of outer space, which was started by the former Soviet Union 50 years ago. These years brought farreaching changes in the political, social, and economic environment and provided worldwide impacts on our present life and foreseeable future. In this context, breathtaking progress in science broadens up tremendously our horizons and ensures enormous opportunities and great challenges. The tools for conquering nature are becoming more powerful and more intricate, as also are the facilities that utilize the laws of nature and its material resources for the needs of human society.

Many of the current space achievements and technical developments has been first envisioned by the Russian space-flight pioneer, a nearly deaf schoolteacher in the obscure small town of the old Russia – Kaluga, Konstantin Eduardovitch Tsiolkovsky.

The works of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky contain in embryo numerous scientific-technical attainments in the space exploration and in the development of engineering facilities to help the solution of many complicated problems.

This is why we recall K. Tsiolkovsky as the scientist who has paved the way for space study and habitation.

Tsiolkovsky’s scientific legacy is amazing both in content and significance. He wrote: “My whole life consisted of work – everything outside that was inaccessible”. Just a glance through the bibliography of his works gives an idea of the extreme diversity of his scientific interests, the versatility of his investigative thoughts. Alongside with his basic studies on rocket dynamics and the air conquest problem, he also touched upon elaborately some problems of physics, geophysics and astronomy, as well as the properties of matter and energy. A number of his papers has been devoted to power engineering and his study expanded to the problems of geology, geochemistry, and biology.

Besides his extreme interest in the origin of life and evidence of its existence elsewhere in the universe, he has been dealing with many problems of philosophy and theology.

Yet this diversity of interest was focused on the main purpose: how to improve the welfare of humanity through an extension of the man power over nature and over outer space. This concept was emphasized in his words: “The prime motive of my life is to do something useful for people, not to spend my life purposelessly, but to advance humanity even the slightest bit. That is why I have interested myself in things that did not give me bread or strength. But I hope that my studies will, perhaps only in the distant future, yield human society mountains of grain and unlimited power.” As early as 1915, he wrote in “The Future of the Earth and Man”: “…man, science and technology will develop simultaneously. Each one will contribute to transforming the face of the earth. Let us begin with technical progress. First, great refinements will be attained in what is presently manufactured. The productivity of the worker will be increased hundreds of times with the aid of machines. Labour in all branches will become perfectly safe, non-injurious to the health, even pleasant and interesting. The working day will be reduced to 4-6 hours. The rest of the time will be given over to free, nonobligatory work, creativeness, recreation, science, dreaming…”

Tsiolkovsky regarded as a true science only that on service of the society.

In 1923 in his work “The Significance of the Basic Sciences Concerning Matter” he wrote: “…science… has an extraordinary, even tangible, so to speak, import, like that of our daily bread”. Addressing the study of atoms to lead not only to a transformation of substances but also to the utilization of enormous energy resources of nature, he apprised the essence of technological progress to benefit the society.

Many of Tsiolkovsky’s writings give an evidence of his profound scientific intuition and his capacity to foresee the future of science. In particular, anticipating the unavoidable progress in material science, as prerequisites for the further technology development and applications, he wrote: “The mines will multiply and deepen and will yield much heat and many new substances and materials with valuable properties… Materials with all kinds of properties will be discovered. Cutting materials harder than diamond – a tool alloys for working hard substances. Materials will be found that will be light and unusually strong, refractory, non-oxidable or neutral, and very light gases with a variety of properties… elastic substances, excellent heat-conducting materials, and the reverse: extremely radioactive, transparent and yet extraordinarily strong materials. Ways will be found to obtain unusually high and unusually low temperatures and this will be utilized for the working of raw materials and for other purposes.”

Most of Tsiolkovsky’s ideas has been ahead of his time and appeared fairly groundless and as a pure fantasy. They based, however, on his profound thoughts. He was endowed with a fertile imagination that sparkled both his scientific works and science-fiction writings, being compiled with his studies.

Despite the fact that most of Tsiolkovsky’s contemporaries responded to his ideas and innovative concepts of conquering outer space as unrealistic and far away from technical implementation he persistently moved along the track beginning of his young time in 1878-1879 and followed by the recollections, notes and drawings done later. Of specific interest and importance is his pioneering paper \”Free Space\” written in 1883 where in the first time the ideas concerning the conditions in outer space in the absence of gravity, the principles of reactive motion, the possibility to control and stabilize a body motion in space environment, have been thoroughly evaluated.

The concluding sentence of this paper is remarkable. He states that the conquest of outer space is an attainable goal and that for the mankind it is achievable in no distant future. It is regrettable indeed that Tsiolkovsky has not survived until the brilliant confirmation of his ideas.

Prospecting future expansion in the outer space, Tsiolkovsky was clearly aware of how complicated is the path along which it is possible to accomplish the goal. He was sure that before getting out beyond the Earth’s atmosphere it would be necessary to solve the problem of mastering the atmosphere itself, and that is why he involved in his study the problem of aerial flights. While working hard on the design of all-metal made dirigible and paying many efforts to this project, he never gave up the idea of heavier-than-air flying machines.

In his works, Tsiolkovsky dealt mainly with those trends in science that appeared to be fundamentally new. As a thinker, he was completely independent and had a very peculiar style of work. It seems the best characteristic of such people like Tsiolkovsky was given by academician A.E. Fersman at the meeting commemorating the fifth anniversary of his death:”…throughout the history of scientific thought there have always been – and always will be – fighters for that which is new. By sheer intuition, from among the thousands of threads of surrounding nature, life and science, they grasp the linking ones.

Frequently they are unable to substantiate their conclusions, of which nevertheless they are convinced and in which they have faith; with bold fantasy they overstep long periods of reasoning and discussion, raising and suggesting the ultimate conclusions without the intermediate calculations. They summarize the past and the present and execute audacious leaps into the future… They cannot be accepted by the official science, for, often, in a thrust of passionate enthusiasm they go too far or even take the wrong path… And yet these fighters for the new have led the world throughout human history and have cut pathways of new creative thought.”

Tsiolkovsky stood firm and persistent in upholding his scientific views. But this persistence had nothing whatsoever in common with intolerance to criticism. Quite the contrary, he realized that the absence of criticism leads to stagnation in science: “…if we cease to express freely new ideas, then science will cease to move forward” was what he wrote in “The Reversibility of Phenomena in General”.

Tsiolkovsky can be also appreciated for his ardent desire to investigate every problem in its multiple interconnections and integrity. For example, while studying the problem of the conquest of air, he examined it both technically and economically. When engaged in “the investigation of world spaces” he did not confine himself to engineering calculations, but made a deep study of the life-support conditions of manned flight, investigated changes of the physiological functions of a human body under theses conditions, and suggested to set up centrifugal facilities to examine the effects of accelerations on the living organism.

However, the most significant part of Tsiolkovsky’s scientific legacy are his works on rocketry. It is precisely in this sphere that his talent as a scientist and his original thinking stand out so brilliantly. His strength of thoughts and trend into the future was drawn from his profound faith in the limitless advance of science, in the boundless extent of man’s mastery over nature, in unlimited abilities of human reason to transform nature in accord with the needs of society.

The present edition contains the principal works of Tsiolkovsky dealing with rocketry and the theory of interplanetary flights. But it also includes his study in some different areas, in particular the paper “The High-speed Train”, in which he describes the concept of a high-speed non-wheeled transport facility – a vehicle on an air cushion.

The papers are arranged in chronological order and are based on the texts of works published during Tsiolkovsky’s lifetime or left by him and preserved in manuscript form. The terminology of the author has been retained as far as possible, as also his system of numbering formulas and sections of the text and all the peculiarities of his highly original style.

Certain obscure places or dubious sheets and also terms he used that differ from presently accepted ones are explained in footnotes. In the notes and comments we have taken into account remarks made by the earlier editions of Tsiolkovsky’s works: F.A. Tsander, M.K. Tikhonravov, A.A. Kosmodemyansky, and N.Ya. Fabrikant. The above mentioned approaches are entirely retained in the second edition of K.E. Tsiolkovsky’s selected works.

Formly Academician A.A. Blagonravov and Candidate of Sciences, tech. V.N. Sokolsky recently the deceased head of the History of Aviation and Cosmonautics department at the Institute of the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, attentively selected the works, compiled them and edited the volume.

The second edition introduction has been thoroughly revised, renewed and rewritten by the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences Commission on the Study and Elaboration of K.E. Tsiolkovsky Scientific Heritage Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences M. Ya. Marov being collaborated with the head of the Problem group on the History of Cosmonautics Candidate of Sciences, tech. V.L. Ponomareva. On the spade-work stage an important contribution has been made by the Vice-Director of the Institute of the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Sciences, geogr. V.V. Glushkov, by the Scientific Secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences Commission on the Study and Elaboration of K.E. Tsiolkovsky Scientific Heritage, Candidate of Sciences, tech.

S.A. Sokolova, Candidate of Sciences, tech. V.L. Ponomareva and E.K. Komarova, as well as with kind help of the following representatives of the Association of scientific-technical museums of Russia: K.E. Tsiolkovsky State Museum on the History of Cosmonautics Scientific secretary – N.G. Belova and the National History Museum of Science & Technology the Polytechnical Museum Senior researcher – Yu.V. Biryukov. The Index was compiled by G. Yankovsky.

This second edition commemorates the 150th anniversary of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky birth A7 September 1857).

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