They Blazed the Trail for the Space Pioneers: on some little-known Ukrainian names in the history of astronautics and rocketry
- Paper number
IAC-06-E4.1.01
- Author
Mr. Oleg Ventskovsky, Yuzhnoye SDO European Representation, Belgium
- Coauthor
Dr. Iryna Vavilova, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine
- Coauthor
Acad. Yaroslav Yatskiv, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine
- Year
2006
- Abstract
Such famous personalities as Korolyov, Glushko, Yangel who were born in Ukraine and/or made their outstanding contributions to the history of space exploration while working in Ukraine, are familiar to the majority of space experts and even to general public. At the same time, there are several names of Ukrainians without whom the humanity’s space achievements would not be possible, but who are still un-renowned to the specialists (let alone “the man in the street”). The paper intends to fill, at least to minor extent, this gap. There will be presented a tour d’horizon of the lives and main space- and rocketry-related activities of four forerunners to the famous space pioneers. Their life time covers period from the end of 18th century to the middle of the 20th century. The talented inventor Olexander Zassyad’ko (1779-1837) not only created a new rocket system, elaborated a theory of rocket propulsion, but also matured a tactics of military use of the weapons invented by him. He dreamt of the rocket flights to the Moon and even made the necessary calculations of the required gunpowder – which is, he understood, not the best fuel for these purposes. Kostyantyn Konstantynov (1818-1871) - engineer, inventor, designer – is to be remembered for the rocket fuel combustion formula he proposed in 1857, long before the famous Tsiolkovsky formula surfaced. He also designed rockets that were the best for his time – in terms of their forms and military characteristics, as well as unrivalled devices such as ballistic pendulum, rocket automatic measurement systems and some others. Mykola Kybal’chich (1853-1881) was among the first scientists who precisely elaborated and substantiated the idea of the rocket engine use for the flights. His jet-driven aircraft’s layout was designed in jail, after the death sentence was pronounced for his participation in the murder of tsar Alexander II. The real genius Yuriy Kondratyuk (Olexander Shargey, 1897-1942), who was well in advance of his time, had a very tragic fate. Being just 17 years old, he proposed a scheme (in after years called “the Kondratyuk’s route”) of the space flight which was later, in the 1960s, used for both launching unmanned spacecraft, as well as for man flights to the Moon (by Americans). He elaborated original schemes of the launch vehicle control systems; stressed the importance of the safety measures for astronauts on the ascending and especially descending part of trajectory and invented simple and reliable chairs for astronauts, as well as thermal protection system for the descending module…But most of his life he was forced to live incognito, and died at the WWII front.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-06-E4.1.01.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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