The book The Wright Brothers by David McCullough focus on the importance of Wilbur and Orville Wright and their invention. Wilbur Wright was the middle child of the five children in the Wright’s family. He was born on April 16, 1867 in Millville, Indiana. His mother, Susan Koerner Wright, was highly intelligent and understanding but unfortunately she passed away due to tuberculosis in 1889. She always had high hopes and dreams for Wilbur and Orville. His father, Bishop Milton Wright, was a very wise and strong-minded man, much like Wilbur and Orville. Their invention of the airplane has made such an impact on the world today.…
Third great Chinese invention is gunpowder. Everything from Guy Fawke's night fireworks to modern artillery shells owes their origin to this. Ancient necromancers searching for the elixir of everlasting life on behalf of the Emperor discovered that mixtures of certain fuels and ores could, if mixed in the right proportions and heated, produce an explosion. This led in time to the discovery of gunpowder. In 1044 Zeng Gongliang wrote “The Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques”, and in this text he recorded three formulae for gunpowder. Each was based on saltpetre (potassium nitrate), sulphur and charcoal. Joseph Needham identified these as the earliest formulae for what we now know as gunpowder. The formula for gunpowder reached the Arab world in the 12th Century and Europe in the 14th century. Common folklore states that gunpowder was first used for entertainment only, with fireworks, but the military potential was soon exploited. Indeed the earliest known illustration of a cannon dating from around 1127 was found in China, the time of the changeover from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty. This was 150 years earlier than the cannon were developed in the west. The Song people also used gunpowder to make fire lances, or flamethrowers, and anti-personnel mines (for which we might be less grateful!). By the end of the Song Dynasty the Chinese had invented multi-stage rockets. In a way this could be seen as the idea behind the rocket, which put a man on the moon. Joseph Needham also suggests that the idea of an explosion in a self-contained cylinder inspired in time the internal combustion engine.…
However, on March 16, 1926 Robert launched the first liquid fueled rocket. This rocket was one of the most significant inventions to all of mankind. The rocket traveled for 2.5 seconds at a speed of about 60 mph, reaching an altitude of 41 feet and landing 184 feet away. The rocket was 10 feet tall, constructed out of thin pipes, and was liquid fueled. This would not have been possible without the De Laval Nozzle. The De Laval Nozzle is an asymmetric hourglass like nozzle that is attached to the end of rockets that creates pressure form liquids burning and creating thrust that sends the rocket upwards. The De Laval uses the expanding gases from burning fuels and in the pinched part of the middle of the nozzle the gases are pressurized and the pressure creates thrust. Using the De Laval nozzle increased his rocket’s efficiency by 63%. He improved the original design by using a calibrated compressed spring. And a device with that could work in a vacuum such as space. However, no one believed that his invention could even work, let alone travel in space. But his same design was used in the rocket that sent the first humans to the…
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”-Neil Armstrong. This quote was said during the process of the space age in 1969. The Space age was a time period related to the three themes, space race, space exploration, and space technology around the period 1950’s-1960’s. It was encouraged by the United States and Soviet Union into determining that their own country is superior than their opponent, which led to an improvement in many technological advancements.…
Older engines like the catapult, onager, trebuchet and ballista are artillery (see siege engines for more information on pre-gunpowder devices), but the first documented record of artillery with gunpowder propellent used on the battlefield is on January 28, 1132 when…
Professor Samuel P. Langley (1834-1906) was a Professor of Astronomy and Physics as well as the Observatory Director at the Alleghany Observatory in Pennsylvania when he became interested in flight in early 1887. He became the Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute that same year and began building model aircraft that were powered by rubber bands. He called them aerodromes. In November 1887 he became the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute and continued his experiments with his model aerodromes and scientifically studying wing designs, engines and flight. In June 1897, after many design failures of quarter-sized aerodromes that were powered by steam and later gasoline engines, Langley concluded his experiments in flight (Gray,…
Though the discovered by accident, gunpowder changed the trajectory of combat operations. Discovered in the ninth century Chinese alchemist developed something with the potential of conquering nations. Gunpowder is used in many weapons throughout history and to this day, but one of the first was flying fire. With the simple invention of the gunpowder cannon, a totally new type of defense was unearthed. When the devastating power of the cannon was shrunken down into a handheld weapon, the course of warfare changed forever.…
Rockets have taken in a lot of experiments and a lot of research to be where there is today. Even thought Dr. Robert Hutching Goddard built the first modern rocket the first successful rocket that used the scientific use of a rocket was a wooden bird, built by a guy named Archtas he amazed the citizens of Tarentum. About 300 years later another man named Alexandria invented the aeolipile. Although there were those rockets the first true rocket seems to be unclear because in the…
I remember the day that I started rocketsledding I was 18 years old my dad brought me to a hill near our house. The hill was small, but I was scared. At first I went down the hill on a normal sled a couple of times, so my dad could teach me on a normal sled how to control a rocket sled. Then, my dad, former rocketsledding champion let me try his rocketsled. At first I was scared, then my dad showed me a few instructions on how to stop, and steer. The hill was about 10 meters long with 50 meters of run off space. After my first attempted I loved rocketsledding, so from that day forward my dad signed me up for lessons. By the time I was 25, I won 2 world championships.…
Many people worked on various kinds of gliders and other planes over the years, so no one person invented the airplane. The Wright Brothers of Dayton, Ohio, are generally recognized as making the first powered aircraft flight (but see below).…
depression. At the young age of six, her father lost his job and her family…
The first airplane was actually a glider. This aircraft was launched from a cliff or from any high place. It rode on the wind to the ground. Sir George Cayel made the first glider that flew. The aircraft could not occupy passengers. He also made a glider that flew his coachmen.…
The podcast of Phyllis Hunter on Reading Rockets: Meet the Experts titled Teaching Reading demonstrated the importance of teaching children to read right the first time. According to Hunter (2008) reading is the first civil right because without being able to read well and strategically, one is unable to access his or her other civil rights and that teaching children to read is a schools first mission. Children need to be reading at grade level or above before completing the third grade (Hunter, 2008). I agree with Hunter’s statement that good is not good enough when we can do better. Teaching children to read is one area where we cannot afford to settle for good, we must strive for best. Reading is a fundamental skill that is necessary for all future learning.…
The inventor of black powder (the first explosive) is unknown, but we do know it was invented in China sometime around the 10th century. Being a messy mechanical explosive it was later replaced with cleaner smokeless powder in 1888 by Albert Nobel. There are three groups of explosives chemical/mechanical/nuclear.…
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration which was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower is the United States government agency responsible for civilian space program as aeronautic and aerospace research. When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA absorbed the 46-year-old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NACA. A significant contributor to NASA's entry into the Space Race with the Soviet Union was the technology from the German rocket program led by Wernher Von Braun, who was now working for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, ABMA, which in turn incorporated the technology of American scientist Robert Goddard's earlier works. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the…