Fifty year is a long time to evaluate the meaning of the breakthrough to the space (the launch of the first artificial satellite of the Earth) and step by step analyze the history of successive accumulation of the data to penetrate the Universe.
Who were those, the first ones? In 1591 the Belgic engineer Ian Beev described and made drawings of the multistage rocket, designed to overcome the Earth’s gravity. In 1650 Poland engineer Kazimir Semenovich published the book “Rockets for the air and water”, where there was a drawing of three-stage rocket. Newton in his famous “Mathematical principles of the natural philosophy” firstly calculated the speed required to launch the rocket on the geostationary orbit.
In 1881 M.I. Kibalchich presented his idea of “Ballooning device”, where to create the lifting power the resistance of the air is not used. To guide the device it was proposed to change the angle of engine. In Saint-Petersburg O.P.Fedorov in 1886 published “New principle of aeronautics, which based the air resistance o as the base to fly.” K.Tsiolkovsky spoke about this book: “I found it unclear. Thus I started to calculate myself – from the beginning. This is the start of my theoretical search for possibility to use rocket engines in space travels.” Konstantin Eduardovich published the paper, which until now is considered classic in astronautics “Investigation of space with rockets”, where it is proved the space flights possibility and were given the main formulas for calculations the rocket flight. Some Tsiolkovsky ideas are used in the modern rocket construction: gas rudders from graphite to control the flight, using of the fuel’s components to cool the walls of the combustion camera, fuel pump supply and others.
In 1923 it was printed the brochure Herman Obert “A rocket in the space”. This book made him the main German expert in astronautics. In 1929 he proposed different kinds of rockets up to the ship which can return to the Earth. He was Fau-2 advisor, in 1955-1958 he worked in USA.
In 1912-1915, in USA an American engineer Robert Goddard developed his own theory of rocket movement and started the experiments. In 1937 his rocket was climbed up to the altitude 3 km. During his life he got 83 patents for inventions in rocketry. Later, on the base of his archives there were registered yet 131 patents.
Yuri Kondratuk (Alexander Shargey) from Poltava proposed in many interesting ideas for his time, which were concerned the space flights and equipment of space ships. Part of them was published in Novosibirsk in 1929 in the book “Conquering of the space”.
The works of the enthusiasts in the different countries led the humanity to the idea to master the main principles of the flight beyond atmosphere. In 20s of the last century the associations for theoretical research and development of the rocket industry were created. This was the stage of science-fiction enthusiasts. Although they were not be able to reach the space but founded the base for it.