The History of Rocket Science
When was the first-ever rocket built?
- By Jimmy Stamp
- Illustration by Harry Campbell
- Smithsonian magazine, February 2013, Subscribe
“Rocket science” is synonymous with intellectual complexity, but new research shows that rocketry owes its existence to baffled Chinese alchemists and a party trick that went horribly wrong.
Previous scholarship places the rocket’s origins in China during the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1279). The first known use of the military rocket occurred in 1232 when the Chinese used fei huo tsiang (flying fire lances) against Mongols besieging the city of Kai-fung-fu.
But that weapon didn’t come out of the blue, and scholars have long craved details about its development. Who invented the first rocket and the gunpowder that fueled it? Was the rocket conceived from the very beginning as a weapon? Did the Chinese master the scientific principles of combustion and propulsion centuries before the West?
To find out, Frank Winter, former curator of rockets at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and now an independent scholar, along with the museum’s Michael Neufeld and Kerrie Dougherty of the Powerhouse Museum in Australia, scoured historical scholarship—a challenging task due to the ambiguous terminology for early projectiles. For instance, the term huo chien (fire arrow) was used by Chinese writers to describe both an ordinary arrow tipped with an incendiary device and a “true rocket,” which Winter, Neufeld and Dougherty define as a device operating solely by self-propulsion.
The researchers discovered that the first rocket to meet this essential criterion was not, in fact, an aerial projectile but the more humble ti lao shu (ground rat), a firework made from a bamboo tube filled with gunpowder that shot about in all directions on the floor. The device first appeared in the late 12th century and was described in a book titled Ch’in yeh-yu (Rustic Tales in Eastern Ch’i). During a royal banquet in the 13th century, the wife of Emperor Li Chung was terrified when a ground rat scurried beneath her chair. The festivities abruptly ended and those responsible for the firework display were imprisoned.
Winter and his colleagues believe that Taoist alchemists had discovered the recipe for gunpowder while searching for nothing less than the formula for immortality. Viewing the natural world as an interplay of yin (passive) and yang (active) forces, they haphazardly mixed and heated yin and yang components and observed the results.
Which often blew up in their faces. Accounts from the ninth century mention singed beards and burned-down houses. Centuries of trial and error refined the gunpowder formula, and alchemists likely stumbled upon the property of propulsion. In that sense, Winter says, the alchemists didn’t deliberately invent the rocket but rather witnessed its birth.
Still, the Chinese innovated. In ensuing years they crafted two-stage rockets, rocket launchers and rockets that exploded on impact. Even the ground rat found its way onto the battlefield: It spooked enemy cavalry as effectively as it frightened an empress.
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Comments (2)
I only recently read the February 2013 issue and "The Little Bang," Jimmy Stamp's little article about the Chinese origins of rocketry. Although I am not Chinese, I have been practicing classical Chinese medicine for 13 years, and the more I work with Chinese principles, the more impressed I am with the culture's wisdom. Perhaps this explains my dismay and disappointment at the casually arrogant western and scientific bias in Stamp's article. From beginning to end, the Chinese inventors of gunpowder and rocketry are portrayed as "singe-bearded, baffled alchemists" who "haphazardly stumbled upon the property of propulsion." Yeah, and 1000 monkeys with typewriters would eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare. Just because you don't understand a system doesn't mean that there is no system. "Viewing the natural world as an interplay of yin and yang forces" has resulted in a more than 2000 year continuous history of discovery, invention and sustainable prosperity. In the same 2000+ years, western culture has given us empires that have risen and fallen, all following rational (but eventually discredited) systems including droit de signeur, slavery and genocide. At the time Chinese alchemists were spending centuries accidentally "witnessing the birth" of rocketry (and oh yeah, by the way "crafting two-stage rockets, rocket launchers and rockets that exploded on impact"), the great minds of the West were occupied with persecuting Galileo and counting the number of angels who could dance on the head of a pin. Chinese culture isn't anywhere near perfect, but westerners who persist in belittling and denigrating it because it doesn't fit their preconceived notions mostly expose their own ignorance and jingoism. Trey Casimir L.Ac. Lewisburg, PA
Posted by Trey Casimir on April 16,2013 | 12:56 PM
This is a great article on the history of rockets! Thanks for the amazing info.
Posted by Ethan H on February 11,2013 | 06:29 PM