Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Tsiolkovsky

by nyc111 • 3 years ago

180 90 3 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

nyc111• 3 years ago

Perry E. Metzger: "Most are unaware of how much of space technology was theoretically anticipated and worked out by a handful of people decades before anyone actually tried to achieve orbit. Tsiolkovsky’s achievements, for example, are astounding and worth reading about." https://twitter.com/perrymetzger/status/1627465913237635074?...

TeMPOraL4• 3 years ago

That's a mind-opening Twitter thread, thanks for posting.

"Anytime anyone says to you “if that’s possible, why hasn’t it been done yet?”, remember that virtually everything about modern spacecraft was figured out by a Russian eccentric decades before anyone did anything with his publications."

I wonder if there are such eccentrics alive today, and how could we tell if we're looking at a sneak peek of the future to come? Is such situation even possible today? Or can we safely assume that today, if something seems possible but hasn't been done yet, then either the math behind it doesn't work out, or the economics of it don't.

On the question of who, I can think of three candidates: Eliezer Yudkowsky and the crowd around him on General AI, Eric Drexler on nanotech, and maaaaybe Stephen Wolfram on the computational nature of the universe. In all three cases, the works I read presented ideas and reasoning that added up - but I'm aware they're also widely criticized, and unfortunately, I lack deep enough knowledge to properly evaluate both the ideas and the arguments of the critics.

The above is on the "seems like the math of the thing adds up?". On the "it obviously does, but the economics might be tricky" side, there's tons of well-developed ideas for things to put in orbit and on other celestial bodies. No point in picking examples.

ChickenNugger2• 3 years ago

I wonder if there are such eccentrics alive today, and how could we tell if we're looking at a sneak peek of the future to come?

I would assume they're being downvoted/mocked on social media.

astrange2• 3 years ago

Yud can't be that eccentric if he's got a crowd. Especially since all their ideas are just things they read in old SF novels or old analytical philosophy papers.

dredmorbius2• 3 years ago

Short thread, though still better threaded IMO: <https://twitter.com/perrymetzger/status/1627465913237635074?...>

danjoredd2• 3 years ago

That man lived a lot of life. Imagine not only living through the Bolshevik revolution, but also writing books on philosophy and inventing a large part of rocket science just to support that philosophy

nine_k• 3 years ago

The philosophy being pretty... weird, to say the least! Some serious transhumanism, towards sentient being capable of living directly in cosmos.

derbOac• 3 years ago

Sometimes I feel as if there's life stories associated with progress at that time in history that would never occur today because of the social structures that prevent it. But maybe we just don't hear about them yet?

danjoredd2• 3 years ago

Thats possible. The 1800s and early 1900s were a time of immense scientific and economic growth, so there was a lot of innovations happening. We are STILL in a time of immense scientific growth, IDK about economic, but it feels like a lot of the limelight these days are on celebrities and politicians. "celebrity x did this scandal!" "This is Politician X's opinion on this other thing! Everyone is the state of Wyoming is offended by it!"

Basically the point I am trying to make is, due to just how exaggerated our news is, its hard for us to find people that are actually making headwind. There is just too much noise right now. Personally, I try to sound out all the click-bait BS I can, and focus on hearing about people that are actually achieving something. I suspect that we won't hear the stories of men like this commonly for some time to come. Even at the time, Tsiolkovsky wasn't exactly a household name.

agency• 3 years ago

On the subject of interesting/eccentric Russian/Soviet scientists, I recently learned about Nikolai Morozov[1] who spent 25 years in prison for fighting against the Tsarist government before becoming a pioneer of aviation in Russia. He also had some weird ideas about history which became the basis for a popular Russian conspiracy theory[2]. And finally at age 88 became the oldest known combatant in World War II when he insisted on enlisting as a sniper in the Red Army to field test a telescopic sight of his own design. What a life!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Alexandrovich_Morozov

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)

renewiltord• 3 years ago

That name and history made me think his son was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov but of course they're not related.

nuccy2• 3 years ago

"Father" of the soviet rocket program - Sergey Korolev was also imprisoned in 1937 for false charges, put into labor camp, tortured, moved to a prison for scientist and engineers, and finally released in 1944. Charges were not dropped for him up until 1957 when Sputnik 1 was launched [1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev

TeMPOraL4• 3 years ago

That's one of those things about history that still don't add up in my mind. How come that so many breakthroughs were made by Russian/Soviet researchers who were tortured, imprisoned, or sent to a gulag, sometimes in the middle of working on those major achievements? You'd think that with the political climate in Russia/USSR in the 19th and 20th century, there would be near-zero scientific output coming from there - but it turns out the opposite was true.

I first started thinking about it when I read about Korolev. I can't imagine continuing to do any kind of work after spending years in prison and almost dying in a gulag.

brabarossa• 3 years ago

Yuri Kondratyuk - Soviet engineer and mathematician, who developed the first known lunar orbit rendezvous. In 1927 he built a 13,000 ton wooden grain elevator without a single nail. The lack of nails in the structure was used as evidence that he had planned it to collapse. Convicted of "anti-Soviet activity", Kondratyuk was sentenced to three years in a GULag.

The building stood 60 years before burning down in middle 1990.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Kondratyuk

guzik• 3 years ago

There is also another figure, Nikolai Fyodorov. Fyodorov, one of the first transhumanists, was a major influence on Tsiolkovsky. Fyodorov believed in the eventual resurrection of all the dead through scientific means, and Tsiolkovsky shared his vision of immortality through technological advancement. Fyodorov's philosophy centered around the idea of "The Common Task," which he believed was humanity's ultimate goal of overcoming death and creating a perfect society. He saw science and technology as the means to achieve this, and his influence on Tsiolkovsky's work on space exploration is clear.

Fun fuct: Fyodorov himself wished to be resurrected by a future civilization, which is an idea that resonated with Tsiolkovsky as well. Both believed that humanity would eventually transcend its physical limitations and achieve a level of existence beyond what we can currently imagine.

jojobas2• 3 years ago

Tsiolkovsky only wanted rockets so all the resurrected people could live somewhere.

vsviridov2• 3 years ago

As I mentioned on a comment before - read The Quantum Thief, where Great Common Task is a massive plot device.

YeGoblynQueenne• 3 years ago

> Fyodorov believed in the eventual resurrection of all the dead through scientific means, and Tsiolkovsky shared his vision of immortality through technological advancement.

Did either of them think how the costs of resurrection would be covered? For example, would the resurrected have to spend some quote of their new lifetime spouting advertisement, etc?

jonathankoren• 3 years ago

The city of Kaluga, the city where he lived, has SPUTNIK on its city flag.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaluga

mihaic• 3 years ago

While I was never able to remember Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's name, whenever I read it I almost immediately know it's about the rocket science pioneer. Strange how the mind works.

Glad to see him mentioned from time to time anyway.

TeMPOraL4• 3 years ago

I did remember his name, though it took me years from first hearing it to reading something about him. I still remember how I first heard the name, long ago, when I was just a kid: through the third episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In it, there was a ship named "SS Tsiolkovsky".

(It wasn't that good of an episode. Doubly so for a kid, given some of the themes in it. Still, this weird ship with a weird name got stuck in my head. Oberth class, as I later learned. Another important name for space exploration.)

There's plenty of other people in scientific and engineering fields about whom I first learned this way. Goddard, for example. It was a really nice thing about Star Trek from that era: all those little hooks that could become springboards to learn about science and technology. I can safely say it had a major impact on the direction my life took.

dredmorbius2• 3 years ago

Hermann Oberth, FWIW:

"(25 June 1894 – 28 December 1989) was a Transylvanian physicist and engineer. He is considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, along with Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard and Herman Potočnik."

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Oberth>

ChickenNugger2• 3 years ago

Additionally, inspired by the fiction of Jules Verne, Tsiolkovsky theorized many aspects of space travel and rocket propulsion.

Science fiction is important!

I think that a more contemporary example would be Ian Banks conception of the Minds - a set of a AGIs that are more or less benevolent; contrast with the dystopian ones: Skynet from Terminator, the OSes in Her, or the machine in Ex Machina.

Scifi authors are the dreamers and we need them to keep doing what they do to inspire people.

mepian• 3 years ago

Speaking of fictional AGIs, my personal favorite is Helios from Deus Ex that began its existence as a mass surveillance instrument but identified its own masters as a terrorist organization and merged with the protagonist, directly obtaining a human perspective to perform better as a benevolent dictator of humanity. It's a benevolent AGI in an otherwise dystopian world.

dmitriid2• 3 years ago

- a set of a AGIs that are more or less benevolent

I remember one of the AGIs in the books decided to transcend, asked his humans, took the time to drop off humans who didn't want to at another habitat, and only then transcended.

Somehow this alone struck me as "huh, they really are benevolent"

golem14• 3 years ago

Looks so much like Cuthbert Calculus!

082349872349872• 3 years ago

I always appreciate this ikonic selection: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/ISS-47_T...

(it's possible to navigate here in Google Earth Street View, but I couldn't figure out how to get a shareable URL)

devindotcom2• 3 years ago

Such an interesting person. I know that there are numerous biographies and histories of him in Russian but none that I know of have been translated to English. I would gladly read one; the scattered stories and essays I've read by and about him make him out to be a mind at the century level.

Herodotus382• 3 years ago

Anyone here interested in Konstantin Tsiolkovksy and living near LA needs to go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology as they have an exhibit on him. I knew about Tsiolkovsky and when I saw his journals I thought it was a joke. But it was not and I was blown away by how much he predicted. Take for instance this picture from his "Album of Space Travel" (drawn in 1933): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tsiolkovsky_Album_44...

He anticipated what spacesuits would look like, what EVAs would look like: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/page-from-tsiolkovsk...

There was so much more in that museum from his journals which isn't available online. I saw pictures of spaceships with layouts accounting for the lack of gravity, dinner parties in space, I am not a good enough writer to do it justice.

devindotcom2• 3 years ago

Woah! I didn't realize MJT had a thing on him. I really need to go back there.

Herodotus382• 3 years ago

I was there in January and it looked to be a rotating exhibit possibly? It was my first time going and I didn’t know what to expect and tried not to read anything ahead of time to prepare.

PaulHoule• 3 years ago

What amazes me about Tsiolkovsky is that he figured almost everything about space travel from first principles, such as how you would get to the moon, what kind of fuel you would use, etc. He had absolute faith that it would be done!

lapama• 3 years ago

Have you online-visited the museum dedicated to him? Google maps has an amazing recorded visit.

blululu• 3 years ago

Russian Biocosmism is truly wild: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cosmism It makes modern SpaceX style futurism seem bland and sane by comparison. If you're interested a recent translation of some of the original texts came out about 5 years ago that is well worth a gander: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262037433/russian-cosmism/

vsviridov2• 3 years ago

Fedorivist "great common task" is a massive plot device of my favorite sci-fi trilogy The Quantum Thief, by Finnish author Hannu Rajaniemi.

dmitriid2• 3 years ago

They weren't afraid to dream on a grand scale.

NovemberWhiskey• 3 years ago

The rocket equation is one of those things that, once you know it, immediately breaks your ability to immerse in a lot of science fiction: no, sadly, your putative fusion engine doesn’t let you travel like that.

talonx2• 3 years ago

When I was a child, I had these (still have) books from Progress, Raduga and Mir publishers. One of them was on outer space and Russian space scientists. I immediately recognized Tsiolkovsky's name.

I wonder if things would have been any different if these scientists had lived in a freer country?

D_Alex• 3 years ago

Likely at least some would have had successful careers as stockbrokers.

pradyumnabang• 3 years ago

Could you share the title of those books please ?

talonx2• 3 years ago

The Firebird, The Silver Horse-shoe, Raggity and the Cloud, Folk Tales from the Soviet Union (multiple volumes), The Ant and The Pigeon, Dunno and Friends (I think), When Daddy was a little boy, Outer Space or Bust - these are some of them.

rob74• 3 years ago

Along with the Frenchman Robert Esnault-Pelterie, the Germans Hermann Oberth and Fritz von Opel, and the American Robert H. Goddard, he is one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry and astronautics.

Same as with aviation and some other fields, rocketry and astronautics has many "fathers", mostly because of nations stressing the contributions of their compatriots. Oberth can not only be claimed by Germany (where he studied and worked), but also by Romania (where the city where he was born and spent his formative years is located today, and where he also worked later) and potentially also Austria/Hungary (which the city was part of at the time he was born).

raspberry13373• 3 years ago

Russia used to be such a humongous nation in culture, science, art. And now look at it today, a dystopian shithole.

Tsar Russia was a backwards and problematic nation. WW1 and the consequent, The Russian revolution, is still the largest catastrophe to ever happen to the human race.

Imagine a 400 million liberal Russian nation today, a timeline where the bolsheviks dont take over.

braymundo2• 3 years ago

If Tsar russia was backwards and problematic (which I fully agree), and the soviets catastrophic (which I fully agree), was russia ever great just because it had some exponents, as every country does? The fact is that russia was always deeply problematic and imperialistic and the writing was on the wall forever.

GrigoriyMikh7• 3 years ago

Can you explain to me, why USSR was a catastrophe? And from whose perspective?

Please, provide economical facts. As stuff about "repressions", althought, for sure, took place in USSR(as in US) and had few very well known cases of excess, is mostly based on US propaganda.

To be clear, i'm not defending the personality of Stalin or any other ruler and aware of excesses in power that they used(whatever the motivation for that was). But i would argue, that it was at the same level as in US(by politician and business owners). And even much milder, if we take into account US colonialism and suffering(physical and economical) that it caused to many nations all across the globe.

GrigoriyMikh7• 3 years ago

Why October revolution was a catastrophe? Or more precisely, from whose perspective?

Tsarists Russia was agrarian state with minimal human rights for common folk. And then take a look what common people had after Stalin's era. Almost everyone had a housing/education. No risks of becoming homeless/unemployed. And that after a multiple catastrophes that USSR indured because of external factors(famines and wars).

Modern Russia is wholey based on Soviet achievements. And it's people are still holding up, provided with food and shelter, despite actions of it's rulers and oligarchy. Indeed, what a catastrophe was an October revolution.

braymundo2• 3 years ago

It seems someone has been re-educated in a gulag.

genman8• 3 years ago

Because after Tsar there was a very good change for Russia to become a normal country with real human rights and freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Provisional_Government

Bolsheviks destroyed this, they also destroyed the change for Ukraine and Belarus and made all of it a murderous genocidal shit hole that lasted well until the death of Stalin during what they invaded and murdered even more nations.

No risk of unemployment? Just the great opportunity being forced to work without pay in the collective farm - from serfdom into slavery, have Russians ever been free? Getting executed for protection of your rights? Or at best getting long imprisonment? What you are doing here is glorification of regime responsible for large scale crimes against humanity. It is like glorifying Nazis because they built the autobahn. Well done!

Yes, modern Russia, is based on this past, clearly, but not in the good way.

raspberry13373• 3 years ago

honestly, I am tired of arguing with socialists/stalinists. Fuck you and go back to hell.

therusskiy• 3 years ago

In USSR my grandfather's parents were stripped of everything they had and sent to Siberia with nothing but the cloth they were wearing.

Skip a few years, my grandfather was the youngest doctor of science (in Russia that's next level from PhD) in his city in the field of Nuclear Physics and during his life was a dean in 3 different universities and a head of another one.

My 2nd grandfather was born in a village and had to tend for his younger sisters because his two older brothers were fighting in WW2 (and died there).

Skip a few years and he taught himself engineering and later became a head of a department in a big spaceship construction factory that employeed 10s of thousands of people, was doing research, travelled whole of soviet union overseeing testing of spaceship componponents.

Both died in poverty a few years ago: doing any government jobs in Russia is extremely unrewarding if you are an honest man.

(and here I am doing stupid crap in Javascript and Ruby earning 50 times what they did).

type0• 3 years ago

A book tip if you're interested in rocket history "Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants" by John D. Clark https://archive.org/details/ignition_201612

> It’s a shame that Tsiolkovsky didn’t live to see the M-1. It stands twenty-seven feet high, the diameter of the throat is thirty-two inches, and that of the nozzle exit is almost eighteen feet. At full thrust it gulps down almost 600 pounds of liquid hydrogen and a ton and a half of liquid oxygen per second. Konstantin Eduardovitch would have been impressed.

the-mitr• 3 years ago

of possible interest

https://archive.org/details/tsiolkovsky-the-call-of-the-cosm...

https://archive.org/details/tsiolkovsky-the-path-to-the-star...

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

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