History of rockets
The first rockets were used as propulsion systems for arrows, and may have appeared as early as the 10th century in Song dynasty China. However, more solid documentary evidence does not appear until the 13th century. The technology probably spread across Eurasia in the wake of the Mongol invasions of the mid-13th century. Usage of rockets as weapons before modern rocketry is attested to in China, Korea, India, and Europe. One of the first recorded rocket launchers is the "wasp nest" fire arrow launcher produced by the Ming dynasty in 1380. In Europe, rockets were also used in the same year at the Battle of Chioggia. The Joseon kingdom of Korea used a type of mobile multiple rocket launcher known as the "Munjong Hwacha" by 1451.
Iron-cased rockets were used by Kingdom of Mysore and by Marathas during the mid 18th century, and were later modified and used by the British. The later models and improvements were known as the Congreve rocket and used in the Napoleonic Wars.
Precursors
The earliest known example of a device displaying the "principles essential to rocket flight" was around 400 BC when Archytas, a Greek Pythagorean, propelled a wooden bird along suspended wires using steam as propellant. The wooden pigeon was tied to a pole by a wire. When the plug containing the steam was released, the steam propelled the pigeon in circles around the pole. About 300 years later, Hero of Alexandria created a similar "rocket-like device" known as an aeolipile that used steam as propulsion. Aeolipile means the god of air. A rotatable sphere was mounted on top of a water basin, which was heated with fire turning the water into steam that traveled into the sphere through 2 pipes. The steam escaped through two L-shaped tubes on opposite sides, causing the sphere to rotate. These devices have been described as "steam rockets", "proto-rockets", and employing "principles essential to rocket flight" and the "action-reaction principle" that preceded true rockets.This aeolipile showed how we can use the action-reaction principle to move things at high speeds which later became the core concept of a rocket.Origins
The dating of the invention of the first gunpowder rocket, otherwise known as the gunpowder propelled fire arrow, is disputed. The History of Song attributes the invention to two different people at different times, Feng Zhisheng in 969 and Tang Fu in 1000. However Joseph Needham argues that rockets could not have existed before the 12th century, since the gunpowder formulas listed in the Wujing Zongyao are not suitable as rocket propellant.Rockets may have been used as early as 1232, when reports appeared describing fire arrows and 'iron pots' that could be heard for 5 leagues when they exploded upon impact, causing devastation for a radius of, apparently due to shrapnel. A "flying fire-lance" that had re-usable barrels was also mentioned to have been used by the Jin dynasty. Rockets are recorded to have been used by the Song navy in a military exercise dated to 1245. Internal-combustion rocket propulsion is mentioned in a reference to 1264, recording that the 'ground-rat,' a type of firework, had frightened the Empress-Mother Gongsheng at a feast held in her honor by her son the Emperor Lizong.
Later developments
Subsequently, rockets are included in the military treatise Huolongjing, also known as the Fire Drake Manual, written by the Chinese artillery officer Jiao Yu in the mid-14th century. This text mentions the first known multistage rocket, the 'fire-dragon issuing from the water', thought to have been used by the Chinese navy.Rocket launchers known as "wasp nests" were ordered by the Ming army in 1380. In 1400, the Ming loyalist Li Jinglong used rocket launchers against the army of Zhu Di.
Spread of rocket technology
The American historian Frank H. Winter proposed in The Proceedings of the Twentieth and Twenty-First History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics that southern China and the Laotian community rocket festivals might have been key in the subsequent spread of rocketry in the Orient.Mongols
The Chinese fire arrow was adopted by the Mongols in northern China, who employed Chinese rocketry experts as mercenaries in the Mongol army. Rockets are thought to have spread via the Mongol invasions to other areas of Eurasia in the mid 13th century.Rocket-like weapons are reported to have been used at the Battle of Mohi in the year 1241.
Middle East
Between 1270 and 1280, Hasan al-Rammah wrote his al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya, which included 107 gunpowder recipes, 22 of which are for rockets. According to Ahmad Y Hassan, al-Rammah's recipes were more explosive than rockets used in China at the time. The terminology used by al-Rammah indicates a Chinese origin for the gunpowder weapons he wrote about, such as rockets and fire lances. Ibn al-Baitar, an Arab from Spain who had immigrated to Egypt, described saltpeter as "snow of China". Al-Baytar died in 1248. The earlier Arab historians called saltpeter "Chinese snow" and "Chinese salt."The Arabs used the name "Chinese arrows" to refer to rockets. The Arabs called fireworks "Chinese flowers". While saltpeter was called "Chinese Snow" by Arabs, it was called "Chinese salt" by the Iranians, or "salt from the Chinese marshes".
Indian subcontinent
In the Indian subcontinent, mercenaries are recorded to have used hand held rockets in 1300. By the mid-14th century, Indian armies were also using rockets in warfare.In the Mughal Empire under Akbar's reign during the 16th century, Mughal artillery rockets began to use metal casing, which made them more weatherproof and allowed a larger amount of gunpowder, increasing their destructive power. Mughal ban iron rockets were described by European visitors, including François Bernier who witnessed the 1658 Battle of Samugarh fought between brothers Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh.
Mysorean rockets
The Kingdom of Mysore used rockets during the 18th century, including during the Anglo-Mysore Wars, which ended in the British conquering Mysore. The British then took an active interest in the technology and developed it further during the 19th century. Use of iron tubes for holding propellant enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missile.After Tipu's defeat in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and the capture of the Mysore iron rockets, they were influential in British rocket development, inspiring the Congreve rocket, which was soon put into use in the Napoleonic Wars.
Later use
According to James Forbes Marathas also used iron-encased rockets in their battles.Korea
The Korean kingdom of Joseon started producing gunpowder in 1374 and was producing cannons and rockets by 1377. However the multiple rocket launching carts known as the "Munjong hwacha" did not appear until 1451.Europe
In Europe, Roger Bacon mentions gunpowder in his Opus Majus of 1267.However rockets do not feature in European warfare until the 1380 Battle of Chioggia.
According to the 18th-century historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori, rockets were used in the war between the Republics of Genoa and Venice at Chioggia in 1380. It is uncertain whether Muratori was correct in his interpretation, as the reference might also have been to bombard, but
Muratori is the source for the widespread claim that the earliest recorded European use of rocket artillery dates to 1380.
Jean Froissart had the idea of launching rockets through tubes, so that they could make more accurate flights. Froissart's idea is a forerunner of the modern Rocket-propelled grenade.
Konrad Kyeser described rockets in his famous military treatise Bellifortis around 1405.
Kyeser describes three types of rockets, swimming, free flying and captive.
Joanes de Fontana in Bellicorum instrumentorum liber described flying rockets in the shape of doves, running rockets in the shape of hares, and a large car driven by three rockets, as well as a large rocket torpedo with the head of a sea monster.
Later developments
In the mid-16th century, Conrad Haas wrote a book that described rocket technology that combined fireworks and weapons technologies. This manuscript was discovered in 1961, in the Sibiu public records. His work dealt with the theory of motion of multi-stage rockets, different fuel mixtures using liquid fuel, and introduced delta-shape fins and bell-shaped nozzles.The name Rocket comes from the Italian rocchetta, meaning "bobbin" or "little spindle", given due to the similarity in shape to the bobbin or spool used to hold the thread to be fed to a spinning wheel. The Italian term was adopted into German in the mid 16th century, by Leonhard Fronsperger in a book on rocket artillery published in 1557, using the spelling rogete, and by Conrad Haas as rackette; adoption into English dates to ca. 1610. Johann Schmidlap, a German fireworks maker, is believed to have experimented with staging in 1590.
Lagari Hasan Çelebi was a legendary Ottoman aviator who, according to an account written by Evliya Çelebi, made a successful crewed rocket flight. Evliya Çelebi purported that in 1633 Lagari launched in a 7-winged rocket using 50 okka of gunpowder from Sarayburnu, the point below Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.
"Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima", first printed in Amsterdam in 1650, was translated to French in 1651, German in 1676, English and Dutch in 1729 and Polish in 1963. For over two centuries, this work of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth nobleman Kazimierz Siemienowicz was used in Europe as a basic artillery manual. The book provided the standard designs for creating rockets, fireballs, and other pyrotechnic devices. It contained a large chapter on caliber, construction, production and properties of rockets, including multi-stage rockets, batteries of rockets, and rockets with delta wing stabilizers.
In his 1696 work, ‘The Making of Rockets. In two Parts. The First containing the Making of Rockets for the meanest Capacity. The other to make Rockets by a Duplicate Proposition, to 1,000 pound Weight or higher,’ Robert Anderson proposed constructing rockets out of "a piece of a Gun Barrel" whose metal casing is much stronger than pasteboard or wood.