No nation had successfully sent a human into space until 12 April 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made one orbit aboard Vostok 1. Gagarin’s flight triggered the Space Race between Russia and America and marked humanity’s venture into outer space.
Prior to World War II, Germany experimented with various military space programs involving human beings – these included Sanger’s antipodal bomber and the Nazi space station.
The Mysorean
Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan created one of the most impressive military innovations during this era when they deployed an iron cased rocket known as Mysorean rockets against British East India Company’s army in their Anglo-Mysore wars, commonly referred to as Mysorean rocket. Fastened onto swords or bamboo poles for easy firing control and launched from controlled positions at long ranges into the air before exploding in shrapnel raining down onto targets below.
Once Seringapatam fell, several Mysorean rockets were captured by British troops and brought back to Woolwich (two remain at Royal Arsenal). There, William Congreve led an intensive research programme into military rocketry that eventually proved useful against Napoleon during Waterloo in 1815. Congreve reverse engineered these Mysorean rockets by developing collapsible frames for launch purposes before using them effectively against him during Waterloo campaign.
The Congreve
The Congreve rocket was one of the earliest military spacecrafts. Constructed of an iron case filled with black powder (composed of sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal) and activated via fuse, its warhead was attached to a wooden guide stick that helped steady its flight path.
British canons were employed during the Napoleonic Wars and later during the Battle of Basque Roads to bomb Boulogne, Copenhagen and Danzig; additionally they were also used against Fort McHenry near Baltimore during the War of 1812; its “red glare” inspired Francis Scott Key to write The Star Spangled Banner as the American national anthem.
Although inaccurate, its long range and loud flames and roar were powerful psychological weapons. By 1850s however,’stickless’ rockets developed by Hale used rotating metal vanes to deflect wind shifts without needing a stabilizing stick for support.
The V2
The V2, commonly referred to as the “vengeance weapon,” destroyed many Allied ships and killed thousands. As the first large-scale liquid propellant rocket ever, its flight was numerous times faster than sound; therefore Allied bombing targeting production facilities and rail transit was important in stopping some launches; yet most missiles still reached their targets, reaching on average over 9,000 kilometers each launch according to Current Swedish Archaeology.
Wernher von Braun, who founded the Verein fur Raumschaftsfahrt (Spaceship Society), designed and manufactured the V2 rocket. After World War II, both Americans and Soviets were eager to gain access to his technology; both nations captured multiple V-2 rockets along with their team that produced them and used these V-2s as starting points for their respective rocket programs – thus inaugurating the Space Age with this groundbreaking technology.
The Antipodal Bomber
Eugen Sanger and Irene Bredt constructed their Silbervogel (German for silver bird) manned space plane in the 1940s. Unlike conventional aircraft or rocket-powered satellites, this craft would park in orbit, giving an overhead view of Earth, as well as range far enough to drop atomic bombs on enemy territory if required. Furthermore, its components could even be reused.
Launched from a sloped ramp using a rocket sled, the craft would use its own engines to reach atmospheric reentry velocity before shutting them off and skimming through the atmosphere with a shallow “skip”, similar to how stones skip over water. This extended its range and allowed post-mission recovery in Japan or any other aligned country such as Russia; similar concepts subsequently reappeared years later under more discrete names like Dynasoar.
The Space Station
Over the last several decades, twelve manned space stations have been launched into orbit and occupied for varying amounts of time, providing an invaluable science lab as well as testing ground for new space technologies and serving as symbols of international cooperation.
In 1971, the Soviet Union launched Salyut 1, an orbiting monolith with two docking ports to facilitate resupply operations. Skylab and Mir base block modules soon after joined it in space.
In 1998, construction of what would later become the International Space Station began in earnest. Now complete, it boasts more living space than a three-bedroom house and weighs about as much as a Boeing 747 jumbo jet; its solar arrays cover an area the width of a football field; and hosts various scientific experiments.