TSIOLKOVSKY, Konstantin (Eduardovich)

(1857-1935)

   Russian scientist and writer. He began investigating the possibility of SPACE FLIGHT in 1878. In his monograph Free Space (1883 chap) he suggested that SPACESHIPS would have to operate by jet propulsion. His consideration of some of the practical difficulties led to a paper entitled "How to Protect Fragile and Delicate Objects from Jolts and Shocks" (1891). In 1903 he published the classic paper "The Probing of Space by Means of Jet Devices", proposing that space travel could beachieved using multistage liquid-fuelled ROCKETS. He wrote a good deal of didactic sf, mostly for young readers, in order to popularize his ideas. All of this is collected, along with several essays by or aboutTsiolkovsky, in a vol ed V. Dutt, Put' k zbezdam (coll 1960 USSR; trans by various hands as The Call of the Cosmos 1963 USSR; unauthorized edn, with cuts, vt The Science Fiction of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky 1979 US), the US version substituting an intro by one "Adam Starchild", also falsely credited as ed. The sf stories include the novelette On the Moon (written 1887; 1893), Dreams of Earth and Sky (coll 1895), and a full-length novel,Vne zemli (1916 Priroda i Lyudi; exp 1920; trans in this coll as "Outside the Earth"; also appeared trans, with intro, Kenneth Syers as Beyond the Planet Earth 1960 US), which is an account of the building and launchingof a spaceship by an international group of scientists which ends with the initiation of a project to colonize the Solar System.KT was the first great pioneer of space research and the first real prophet of the myth of the conquest of space which has played such a vital role in modern sf. The inscription on the obelisk marking his grave reads: "Man will not always stay on Earth; the pursuit of light and space will lead him to penetrate the bounds of the atmosphere, timidly at first but in the end to conquer the whole of solar space."

BS

   See also: COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; GENERATION STARSHIPS; HISTORY OF SF; HOLLOW EARTH; PREDICTION; RUSSIA; SPACE HABITATS; TRANSPORTATION.