HISTORY

According to the writings of the Roman Aulus Gellius, in 400 BC, a Greek Pythagorean named Archytas, propelled a wooden bird using steam. However, the only knowledge that exists of it, is in Aulus's writings, from 5 centuries later, no diagrams survive, and whether it was truly propelled by rocket power is unknown.

The availability of black powder to propel projectiles was a precursor to the development of the first solid rocket. Ninth Century Chinese Taoist alchemists discovered black powder in a search for the Elixir of life; this accidental discovery led to experiments in forms of weapons like bombs, cannon, incendiary fire arrows and rocket-propelled fire arrows.

Exactly when the first flights of rockets occurred is contested, some say that the first recorded use of a rocket in battle was by the Chinese in 1232 against the Mongol hordes. Reports were of fire arrows and 'iron pots' that could be heard for 5 leagues - 15 miles - and that, upon impact, exploded causing devastation for 2,000 feet in all directions, apparently due to shrapnel. The lowering of iron pots may have been a way for a besieged army to blow up invaders. The fire arrows were either arrows with explosives attached, or arrows propelled by gunpowder, such as the Korean Hwacha.

Less controversially, one of the earliest devices recorded that used internal-combustion rocket propulsion was the 'ground-rat,' a type of firework, recorded in 1264 as having frightened the Empress-Mother Kung Sheng at a feast held in her honor by her son the Emperor Lizong.

Subsequently, one of the earliest texts to mention the use of rockets was the Huolongjing, written by the Chinese artillery officer Jiao Yu in the mid 14th century; this text also mentioned the use of the first known multistage rocket; this was the 'fire-dragon issuing from the water' (huo long chu shui), used mostly by the Chinese navy. That southern China and Laotian community rocket festivals might then have been key in the spread of rocketry in the Orient was proposed by Frank H. Winter in The Proceedings of the Twentieth and Twenty-First History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics.