Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, whose discoveries made a significant contribution to the development of science, and whose biography is of interest not only in terms of his achievements, is a great scientist, a world-famous Soviet researcher, the founder of cosmonautics and a promoter of space. Known as a developer capable of conquering outer space.
Who is Tsiolkovsky?
The short is a vivid example of his dedication to his work and perseverance in achieving the goal, despite difficult life circumstances.
The future scientist was born on September 17, 1857, not far from Ryazan, in the village of Izhevskoye.
His father, Eduard Ignatievich, worked as a forester, and his mother, Maria Ivanovna, who came from a family of small-scale peasants, ran a household. Three years after the birth of the future scientist, his family moved to Ryazan due to difficulties encountered by his father at work. The initial education of Konstantin and his brothers (reading, writing and the basics of arithmetic) was done by my mother.
Young years of Tsiolkovsky
In 1868 the family moved to Vyatka, where Konstantin and his younger brother Ignatius became students of the men's gymnasium. The training was difficult, the main reason for this was deafness - a consequence of scarlet fever, which the boy suffered at the age of 9. In the same year, a great loss occurred in the Tsiolkovsky family: everyone's beloved older brother Konstantin, Dmitry, died. And a year later, unexpectedly for everyone, there was no mother either. The family tragedy had a negative impact on Kostya's studies, moreover, his deafness began to progress sharply, more and more isolating the young man from society. In 1873, Tsiolkovsky was expelled from the gymnasium. He never studied anywhere else, preferring to engage in his education on his own, because books generously gave knowledge and never reproached for anything. At this time, the guy became interested in scientific and technical creativity, even designed a lathe at home.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky: interesting facts
At the age of 16, Konstantin, with the light hand of his father, who believed in the abilities of his son, moved to Moscow, where he unsuccessfully tried to enter the Higher Technical School. The failure did not break the young man, and for three years he independently studied such sciences as astronomy, mechanics, chemistry, mathematics, communicating with others using a hearing aid.
The young man visited the Chertkovsky public library every day; it was there that he met Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov - one of the founders. This outstanding person replaced the young man with all the teachers combined. Life in the capital for Tsiolkovsky was not affordable, besides, he spent all his savings on books and instruments, so in 1876 he returned to Vyatka, where he began to earn money by tutoring and private lessons in physics and mathematics. Upon returning home, due to hard work and difficult conditions, Tsiolkovsky's eyesight fell sharply, and he began to wear glasses.
Pupils to Tsiolkovsky, who has established himself as a high-class teacher, went with great pleasure. The teacher in teaching the lessons used methods developed by him, among which the key was a visual demonstration. For geometry lessons, Tsiolkovsky made models of polyhedra out of paper, together with his students Konstantin Eduardovich taught, he earned the fame of a teacher who explains the material in an understandable, accessible language: it was always interesting in his classes. In 1876, Ignatius, the brother of Konstantin, died, which was a very big blow for the scientist.
Personal life of a scientist
In 1878, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, together with his family, changed their place of residence to Ryazan. There he successfully passed the exams for a teacher's diploma and got a job at a school in the city of Borovsk. In the local district school, despite a significant distance from the main scientific centers, Tsiolkovsky actively conducted research in the field of aerodynamics. He created the foundations of the kinetic theory of gases by sending the available data to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society, to which he received an answer from Mendeleev that this discovery was made a quarter of a century ago.
The young scientist was very shocked by this circumstance; his talent was taken into account in St. Petersburg. One of the main problems that occupied Tsiolkovsky's thoughts was the theory of balloons. The scientist developed his own version of the design of this aircraft, characterized by a thin metal shell. Tsiolkovsky expressed his thoughts in the work of 1885-1886. "Theory and experience of the balloon".
In 1880, Tsiolkovsky married Varvara Evgrafovna Sokolova, the daughter of the owner of the room in which he lived for some time. Tsiolkovsky's children from this marriage: sons Ignatius, Ivan, Alexander and daughter Sophia. In January 1881, Konstantin's father died.
A brief biography of Tsiolkovsky mentions such a terrible event in his life as a fire in 1887, which destroyed everything: modules, blueprints, acquired property. Only the sewing machine survived. This event was a heavy blow for Tsiolkovsky.
Life in Kaluga: a short biography of Tsiolkovsky
In 1892 he moved to Kaluga. There he also got a job as a teacher of geometry and arithmetic, at the same time doing astronautics and aeronautics, built a tunnel in which he checked aircraft. It was in Kaluga that Tsiolkovsky wrote his main works on theory and medicine, while continuing to work on the theory of a metal airship. With his own money, Tsiolkovsky created about a hundred different models of aircraft and tested them. Konstantin's own funds for research were not enough, so he turned to the Physico-Chemical Society for financial assistance, which did not consider it necessary to financially support the scientist. Subsequent news of Tsiolkovsky's successful experiments nevertheless prompted the Physico-Chemical Society to allocate him 470 rubles spent by the scientist on the invention of an improved aerodynamic tunnel.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky pays more and more attention to the study of space. The year 1895 was marked by the publication of Tsiolkovsky's book "Dreams of the Earth and Sky", and a year later he began work on a new book: "Exploration of outer space with the help of a jet engine", in which he focused on rocket engines, cargo transportation in space and fuel features.
Tough twentieth century
The beginning of the new, twentieth century, was difficult for Konstantin: no more money was allocated for the continuation of research important for science, his son Ignatius committed suicide in 1902, five years later, when the river flooded, the scientist’s house was flooded, many exhibits, structures and unique calculations. It seemed that all the elements of nature were opposed to Tsiolkovsky. By the way, in 2001 on the Russian ship "Konstantin Tsiolkovsky" there was a strong fire that destroyed everything inside (as in 1887, when the scientist's house burned down).
last years of life
A brief biography of Tsiolkovsky describes that the life of a scientist became a little easier with the advent of Soviet power. The Russian Society of Lovers of World Studies provided him with a pension, which practically did not allow him to die of starvation. After all, the Socialist Academy did not accept the scientist into its ranks in 1919, thereby leaving him without a livelihood. In November 1919, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was arrested, taken to the Lubyanka, and released a few weeks later thanks to the petition of a certain high-ranking party member. In 1923, another son died - Alexander, who decided to die on his own.
The Soviet authorities remembered Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the same year, after the publication of G. Oberth, a German physicist, about space flights and rocket engines. During this period, the living conditions of the Soviet scientist changed dramatically. The leadership of the Soviet Union paid attention to all his achievements, provided comfortable conditions for fruitful activity, appointed a personal life pension.
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, whose discoveries made a huge contribution to the study of astronautics, died in his native Kaluga on September 19, 1935 from stomach cancer.
Achievements of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
The main achievements to which Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, the founder of astronautics, devoted his entire life, are:
- Creation of the country's first aerodynamic laboratory and wind tunnel.
- Development of a technique for studying the aerodynamic properties of aircraft.
- More than four hundred works on the theory of rocket science.
- Work on the rationale for the possibility of traveling into space.
- Creation of own scheme of gas turbine engine.
- Exposition of a rigorous theory of jet propulsion and proof of the necessity of using rockets for space travel.
- Design of a controlled balloon.
- Creation of a model of an all-metal airship.
- The idea of launching a rocket from an inclined guide, successfully used at the present time in multiple launch rocket systems.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was born on September 17, 1857. Disputes about its role in the development of world science do not subside. Someone considers him a dropout, a fascist and a plagiarist, someone considers him a brilliant scientist, a Russian da Vinci. 7 ingenious follies of Tsiolkovsky.
"ON THE MOON"
Tsiolkovsky was self-taught. Ever since his school days, he had serious hearing problems, which is why little Kostya experienced alienation from his peers and more and more went into books that were his best friends. In fact, cut off from the scientific environment, Tsiolkovsky made most of his discoveries on an intuitive level. In 1893, Tsiolkovsky's story "On the Moon" was published in the magazine "Around the World". In it, the scientist anticipated those physical phenomena that people will be able to prove almost a century later. Tsiolkovsky, with the help of thought, seemed to have visited the satellite of the Earth. The story is short, highly recommended reading.
RELIGION
Tsiolkovsky was not religious. His wife's parents agreed to have an atheist son-in-law only because their daughter was a dowry. Tsiolkovsky's attitude to Orthodoxy was special. His daughter recalled: “He considered churches to be decorations of cities and monuments of antiquity. Father listened to the ringing of bells like music and liked to walk around the city during the vigil. He treated Christ as a great humanist and a person of genius who foresaw intuitively the truths, which scientists later approached through science. Such, for example, is Christ's dictum: "There are many mansions in my father's house." Tsiolkovsky saw in this saying of Christ the idea of numerous inhabited worlds.
Tsiolkovsky placed Christ unattainably high in regard to ethics. His death for an idea, his grief for humanity, his ability to understand everything, to forgive everything, drove him into ecstasy. But with the same enthusiasm he treated the selfless workers of science, who saved mankind from death, disease, inventors, who facilitated human labor. He believed in higher perfect beings living on planets older than our earth, but he thought of them as beings consisting of the same matter as the entire cosmos, which, according to his concept, was governed by laws common to the entire universe. .
Tsiolkovsky's careless statements about Christ once almost cost him his teacher's place. Tsiolkovsky had to spend a lot of money to go to Kaluga and explain himself to his superiors.
AIRSHIP
One of the main deeds of Tsiolkovsky's life was the all-metal airship he designed. Balloons of that time were not only unreliable, but also unsafe. Tsiolkovsky's airship favorably differed from them in several characteristics at once. Firstly, the volume of the shell was variable, which made it possible to maintain a constant lifting force at different flight altitudes and temperatures of the atmospheric air surrounding the airship. This possibility was achieved due to corrugated sidewalls and a special tightening system.
Secondly, Tsiolkovsky left the use of explosive hydrogen, his airship was filled with hot air. The height of the airship could be adjusted using a separately developed heating system. The air was heated by passing the exhaust gases of the motors through the coils.
Thirdly, the thin metal shell was also corrugated, which made it possible to increase its strength and stability. Tsiolkovsky repeatedly applied for financial assistance to build an airship, but he was constantly refused. He independently, at his own expense, made several models of airships, working and controlled.
EUGENICS
Tsiolkovsky is reproached for extremely sharp views on humanity and is even called the ideologist of Russian fascism. Indeed, the views of the scientist on human progress sin undeniably subjective. Here, for example, is one of Tsiolkovsky's statements: “Everyone must strive to ensure that there are no imperfect beings, for example, rapists, cripples, sick, feeble-minded, unconscious, etc. They should be exceptionally cared for, but they should not produce offspring. So painlessly they fade away. There should not be unconscious animals in the world, but they should not be killed either, but by isolating the sexes or in other ways stopping their reproduction.
Now the inhabitants of the northern countries cannot do without domestic animals, but in time, when everyone will receive the right to 4 acres of land in a warm climate, not only wild, but also domestic animals will be superfluous. Tsiolkovsky dreamed of an ideal human society and expressed radical views. So, he proposed to destroy criminals, splitting them into atoms, and also adhered to the idea of a caste structure of society. In the future, the scientist believed, society will turn into ray energy. Some interpreters of Tsiolkovsky's writings consider this idea to be an intuition about the era of the Internet.
DISCOVERIES
Despite the fact that most of the discoveries were made by Tsiolkovsky intuitively, their number is amazing. They proposed: gas rudders (made of graphite) to control the flight of the rocket and change the trajectory of its center of mass; the use of propellant components for cooling the outer shell of the spacecraft (during entry into the Earth's atmosphere), the walls of the combustion chamber and the nozzle; pumping system for supplying fuel components. 
In the field of rocket propellants, Tsiolkovsky investigated a large number of different oxidizers and fuels; recommended fuel vapors: liquid oxygen with hydrogen, oxygen with hydrocarbons. Tsiolkovsky worked hard and fruitfully on the creation of a theory of the flight of jet aircraft, invented his own scheme of a gas turbine engine. The merits of Tsiolkovsky were highly appreciated not only by domestic scientists, but also by the creator of the first rockets, Wernher von Braun.
ERRORS
Such a hectic activity. developed by Tsiolkovsky could not do without mistakes. So, due to isolation from the scientific world, he rediscovered the kinetic theory of gases, sending it to Mendeleev, to which he replied in bewilderment: the kinetic theory of gases was discovered 25 years ago.
in 1893, Tsiolkovsky published the work "Gravity as a source of world energy", where, using the erroneous theory of compression developed by Helmholtz (1853) and Kelvin ("Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism"), he tried to calculate the age of the Sun, determining the age of the star at 12 million years and predicting that in 7.5 million years the Sun will go out, since its density will reach the density of the planet (Earth). Modern science puts the age of the Sun at 4.59 billion years, saying it will shine and support life on Earth for at least another 1 billion years.
Tsiolkovsky did not accept Einstein's theory of relativity, saying that pointing to the limitedness of the Universe and the limited speed in the Universe by the speed of light is the same as limiting the creation of the world to six days. Tsiolkovsky also rejected the idea of time relativity: “The slowdown of time in ships flying at subluminal speed compared to terrestrial time is either a fantasy or one of the regular mistakes of a non-philosophical mind. … Time slowdown! Understand what wild nonsense lies in these words! 
HIGH CONSPIRECT
Tsiolkovsky was one of those people who devoted himself entirely to science. He even married not for love, but only with the expectation that his wife would not interfere with his work. His relations with those around him did not develop in the best way, he had almost no friends, but there were students.
Tsiolkovsky devoted 42 years of his life to teaching practice. According to the memoirs, the scientist was not a passionate speaker, but he managed to interest the audience, the students loved him, which cannot be said about the neighbors. Many took Tsiolkovsky for a madman, which, however, did not particularly worry him.
Still, the theory of eugenics he developed provided answers to many questions and claims. Here is one of the opinions about Tsiolkovsky: “This Kaluga native,” some said, “is a man out of his mind, a semi-literate ignoramus, a teacher of arithmetic for dioceses, that is, for priestly daughters (what a shameful position!), Understanding nothing in science, takes on the solution of unsolvable problems over which the minds of famous professors struggled. This, so to speak, teacher of the preparatory class sticks his nose in areas to which he has absolutely nothing to do - in higher mathematics and astronomy! Why, this is for chickens to laugh at! ”
The first Soviet artificial earth satellites and space rockets ushered in the era of interplanetary travel. Flights to the Moon and other planets are a real technical problem that will be solved in the relatively near future. “Stand on the soil of asteroids, lift a stone from the Moon with your hand, observe Mars from a distance of several tens of kilometers, land on its satellite or even on its very surface - what could be more fantastic? From the moment of the use of rocket instruments, a new great era in astronomy will begin: the era of a closer study of the sky. These words belong to Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, the great Russian scientist. His work opened the era of space flight.
Tsiolkovsky's life is an example of selfless service to science. He was born into a forester's family. As a child, an illness left him deaf. Communication with people was difficult, and reading became the boy's favorite pastime. When he was 16 years old, his father sent him to Moscow to complete his education. Tsiolkovsky studied hard, denying himself everything. He independently studied mathematics, physics, chemistry, built models, conducted experiments.
Already in his youth, Konstantin Eduardovich was thinking about how to overcome the force of gravity and go to travel in the world space. He devoted his whole life to solving this problem.
In 1903, his first work was published - "Investigation of the World Spaces with Reactive Instruments", where the scientist outlined the theoretical foundations of interplanetary travel and proposed using a rocket as a spacecraft.
The rocket has been known for a long time, but Tsiolkovsky was the first to scientifically substantiate the use of the jet propulsion principle for flights in an airless world space. In front of the interplanetary ship, the scientist places a cabin for passengers. In the main part of the body there is a supply of liquid fuel, which is pumped into the combustion chamber by pumps. The heated gases flow out through a long pipe expanding towards the end. Rudders made of refractory material are placed in the gas jet. The reactive force of the flowing jet propels the rocket, and when the rudders are deflected, the flight direction changes.
Tsiolkovsky, in his works, considered in detail how interplanetary flight would take place, and put forward a number of important and interesting ideas. He found that in order to take off from the Earth, a rocket needs to have such a huge amount of fuel that it is not able to accommodate. Therefore, he proposed to make a rocket ship from several rocket stages. Such a rocket train will gradually be able to gain the desired space speed. Artificial satellites of the Earth were launched with the help of such composite multi-stage rockets, developing speeds up to 8 km / s.
To fly to the Moon and planets, it is necessary to develop a speed of 11-16 km / s. It can be purchased by a multi-stage rocket. But you can also use an extraterrestrial station - a manned satellite of the Earth - as a base for interplanetary travel. The idea of such a station also belongs to Tsiolkovsky.
From parts delivered by rockets from Earth, a large satellite will be assembled. It will house living quarters, various laboratories, an observatory, and fuel depots. A rocket embarking on an interplanetary flight will be able to replenish its fuel supply here in order to continue its journey. You can also assemble the rocket itself at the station. Tsiolkovsky carefully studied the living conditions of the future inhabitants of the settlements in the global space. He believed that outside the atmosphere, people would be able to use solar energy on a large scale.
Tsiolkovsky's ideas about the study and conquest of space have found universal recognition. He laid the foundations for a new science of space flight - astronautics. Even during the lifetime of the scientist, the first liquid-propellant rockets were built and tested. Tsiolkovsky foresaw that such rockets would also be used for ascents to great heights, into the upper layers of the atmosphere and the part of world space adjacent to the Earth.
At the same time, Tsiolkovsky dealt with the problems of aviation and aeronautics. He studied the resistance that air exerts on bodies moving in it, and built the first wind tunnel in Russia for experiments. Even in his youth, he had the idea of an airship made entirely of metal, which could, without using ballast, rise or fall without losing gas. By heating the gas in a metal shell, it would be possible to change the volume, and hence the lifting force of the controlled balloon.
Tsiolkovsky not only developed the theory of such an airship, but also made models of it. The scientist was sure that soon giant all-metal airships would become the most important mode of transport.
He dreamed of the time when huge airships, lifting hundreds of tons of cargo and thousands of passengers, would connect separate corners of the Earth.
The rapid progress of aviation, the improvement of high-speed aircraft and passenger cars with large payloads, limited the development of airship construction.
A few years before the appearance of the first aircraft, Tsiolkovsky described in detail the design of an aircraft heavier than air. His design is in many ways reminiscent of the designs of modern aircraft.
Tsiolkovsky, considering the aircraft as a transitional step to the spacecraft, created the theory of the flight of a rocket airplane and expressed ideas regarding its design. A gradual increase in speed and flight altitude should lead to an aircraft-rocket - a manned satellite of the Earth.
Tsiolkovsky was a versatile scientist and inventor. Aviation, aeronautics, rocket technology and interplanetary communications are the main areas of his activity. He owns many inventions and discoveries. He invented, for example, a jet car without wheels, which could move at high speed by the recoil force of the outflowing air stream.
He dealt with biology, mechanics, astronomy, philosophy, wrote science fiction novels and essays. In the story "On the Moon" Tsiolkovsky depicted what the astronauts who arrived from the Earth would see on it; in "Dreams of Earth and Sky" he spoke about the "wonderland" - the asteroid belt. The story of Konstantin Eduardovich "Out of the Earth" figuratively depicts the conquest of the universe by man, a journey on a space rocket, a visit to the moon.
Tsiolkovsky's life is not remarkable for events. He spent most of it in Kaluga.
Konstantin Eduardovich devoted decades to pedagogical work, at the same time continuing his scientific activity, printing many brochures and articles.
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Introduction
I chose this topic because Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky is a scientist with a capital letter. His scientific works have been studied and will be studied for a long time to come. Tsiolkovsky made a great contribution to the development of the natural sciences, so such a person cannot be ignored. He is an author on aerodynamics, aeronautics and many others. Representative of Russian cosmism, member of the Russian Society of Lovers of the World. The author of science fiction works, a supporter and propagandist of the idea of space exploration using orbital stations, put forward the idea of a space elevator. He believed that the development of life on one of the planets of the Universe would reach such power and perfection that it would make it possible to overcome the forces of gravity and spread life throughout the Universe.
Childhood and self-education K.E. Tsiolkovsky
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was born on September 5, 1857, in the family of a Polish nobleman who served in the department of state property, in the village of Izhevskoye near Ryazan. He was baptized in St. Nicholas Church. The name Konstantin was completely new in the Tsiolkovsky family, it was given by the name of the priest who baptized the baby.
In Izhevsk, Konstantin had a chance to live for a very short time - the first three years of his life, and he had almost no memories of this period. Eduard Ignatievich (Konstantin's father) started having troubles in the service - the authorities were dissatisfied with his liberal attitude towards local peasants. In 1860, Konstantin's father received a transfer to Ryazan as a clerk of the Forest Department, and soon began to teach natural history in the land surveying and taxation classes of the Ryazan gymnasium and received the rank of titular adviser.
The mother was involved in the primary education of Tsiolkovsky and his brothers. It was she who taught Konstantin to read (moreover, his mother taught him only the alphabet, and how to add words from letters Tsiolkovsky guessed himself), write, introduced him to the basics of arithmetic.
At the age of 9, Tsiolkovsky, sledding in the winter, caught a cold and fell ill with scarlet fever. As a result of a complication after an illness, he lost his hearing. Then came what later Konstantin Eduardovich called "the saddest, darkest time of my life." At this time, Tsiolkovsky for the first time begins to show interest in craftsmanship.
In 1868 the Tsiolkovsky family moved to Vyatka. In 1869, together with his younger brother Ignatius, he entered the first class of the male Vyatka gymnasium. The study was given with great difficulty, there were many subjects, the teachers were strict. The deafness was very disturbing. In the same year, sad news came from St. Petersburg - the elder brother Dmitry, who studied at the Naval College, died. This death shocked the whole family, but especially Maria Ivanovna. In 1870, Kostya's mother, whom he dearly loved, died unexpectedly. Grief crushed the orphaned boy. Even without that he did not shine with success in his studies, oppressed by the misfortunes that fell on him, Kostya studied worse and worse. Much more acutely did he feel his deafness, which made him more and more isolated. For pranks, he was repeatedly punished, ended up in a punishment cell.
In the second grade, Tsiolkovsky remained for the second year, and expulsion followed from the third. After that, Konstantin Eduardovich never studied anywhere - he studied exclusively on his own. Books become the boy's only friends. Unlike gymnasium teachers, books generously endow him with knowledge and never make the slightest reproach.
At the same time, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky joined the technical and scientific creativity. He independently made a home lathe, self-propelled carriages and locomotives. He was fond of tricks, thought about the project of a car with wings.
For the father, the abilities of his son become obvious, and he decides to send the boy to Moscow to continue his education. Every day from 10 am to 3-4 pm, the young man studies science in the Chertkovo public library - the only free library in Moscow at that time.
Work in the library was subject to a clear schedule. In the morning, Konstantin was engaged in exact and natural sciences, which required concentration and clarity of mind. Then he switched to simpler material: fiction and journalism. He actively studied "thick" journals, where both review scientific articles and journalistic articles were published. He enthusiastically read Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, Turgenev, admired the articles of Dmitry Pisarev: “Pisarev made me tremble with joy and happiness. In him I saw then my second “I”. During the first year of his life in Moscow, Tsiolkovsky studied physics and the principles of mathematics. In 1874, the Chertkovo Library moved to the building of the Rumyantsev Museum. In the new reading room Konstantin studies differential and integral calculus, higher algebra, analytic and spherical geometry. Then astronomy, mechanics, chemistry. For three years, Konstantin fully mastered the gymnasium program, as well as a significant part of the university one. Unfortunately, his father was no longer able to pay for his accommodation in Moscow, and besides, he felt unwell and was going to retire. With the knowledge gained, Konstantin could well begin independent work in the provinces, as well as continue his education outside of Moscow. In the autumn of 1876, Eduard Ignatievich called his son back to Vyatka, and Konstantin returned home.
Konstantin returned to Vyatka weakened, emaciated and emaciated. Difficult living conditions in Moscow, hard work also led to a deterioration in vision. After returning home, Tsiolkovsky began to wear glasses. Having regained his strength, Konstantin began to give private lessons in physics and mathematics. I learned my first lesson through my father's connections in a liberal society. Having shown himself to be a talented teacher, in the future he had no shortage of students. When teaching lessons, Tsiolkovsky used his own original methods, the main of which was a visual demonstration - Konstantin made paper models of polyhedra for geometry lessons, together with his students conducted numerous experiments in physics lessons, which earned him the fame of a teacher who explains the material well and clearly in classes with who are always interested. He spent all his free time in it or in the library. I read a lot - special literature, fiction, journalism. According to his autobiography, at that time he read The Beginnings by Isaac Newton, whose scientific views Tsiolkovsky adhered to throughout his later life.
At the end of 1876, Konstantin's younger brother Ignatius died. The brothers were very close from childhood, Konstantin trusted Ignatius with his innermost thoughts, and the death of his brother was a heavy blow. By 1877, Eduard Ignatievich was already very weak and ill, the tragic death of his wife and children affected (except for the sons of Dmitry and Ignatius, during these years the Tsiolkovskys lost their youngest daughter, Ekaterina, she died in 1875, during the absence of Konstantin), head family retired. In 1878 the entire Tsiolkovsky family returned to Ryazan.
NOSTALGIA FOR THE FUTURE
Have you ever yearned for the future? Not the way it happens, sometimes in passing it flashes through my head: oh, what a fantastic life will someday be, it’s a pity that I won’t see it! - and immediately forget, returning to real everyday life. And seriously to grieve. To languish, as a young and strong wolf languishes on a full moon in the middle of a clearing, just like him, raising his head and mentally howling at this future, so close and bright and at the same time inaccessible and alien. It seems that you are free - go where you want, live as you want, do what you want - and at the same time you are sentenced, and your freedom is fake. After all, there is not even the year 2100 for you, which is almost within reach, and even if you turn your whole soul inside out, resounding the whole world with your longing, it will not be for you. And time will fly by and this year 2100 will become history for people, as banal as the year 2000 has recently become. The only difference is that this time you yourself will remain inside this century, stumbling over one of its days. It’s as if you jumped on the go on the bandwagon of the world rushing somewhere, got used to it, got used to it, and the conductor-time is already coming and will not let you go further than the station, no matter how you ask.
Life is becoming less and less boring, the landscape outside the window is changing, like in a kaleidoscope - every day brings new discoveries and opportunities, such that you don’t have time to get used to it, and this makes death seem more and more annoying, even if you have lived to the age when, - according to all immutable canons - it's time. But why "immutable"? You look back at today's world. Everything that surrounds us was once an unattainable dream. Even this ordinary book that you are now holding, if it were in the hands of a reader of Pushkin's time, would cause a shock - with its rich rich colors, brilliant embossing of the title on a matte cover, and pages fastened to each other in some unimaginable way. And most of all, our ancestors from the same nineteenth century, if they were in the current world, would be amazed by two things - unheard-of comfort in everything and our sour physiognomies, always complaining about minor flaws in this comfort: either the plane took off a couple of hours later, or electricity there was no half a day in the house, then the filling fell out in just a year. We have learned fantastic things, we live in a fairy-tale world and we don’t notice it at all. And when someone says that we will soon be able to live indefinitely, everyone answers him in chorus: “nonsense, never.”
How often did Tsiolkovsky, the founder of rocket science, hear such words! Fate, perhaps, made him half-deaf in childhood, so that ridicule and indignation could be heard less to his conceited nature. His name today is tenaciously associated with space, which has become so commonplace for us that we even began to turn it into tourism, and the most impatient of us are buying up plots on the moon. But few remember that Tsiolkovsky, in his own words, "the purest materialist", recognizing nothing but matter, believed in the immortality of man and thought and wrote a lot about it. And from this side, he is still waiting for a worthy assessment and recognition.
FAIRY CHILDHOOD
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was born on September 5, 1857 in the village of Izhevskoye, Ryazan province, in the family of a forester. The mother, an attentive and wise woman, was engaged in the upbringing of children and their primary education. Everyone adored little Kostya. He spent his childhood in Vyatka, where the family moved shortly after the judicial epic. He grew up as a very cheerful child, always ready to participate in all kinds of children's games and pranks. In principle, many children are characterized by seething energy and indefatigability, but his increased activity was somehow meaningful and thoughtful. His passion was the mystery and the hidden mechanism of things and phenomena. Therefore, Kostya dismantled toys faster and more meticulously than others, he dismantled them first of all, as if they were given to him only for this.
Another of his passions, which distinguished him from his peers, was reading. At the age of eight, he read everything in a row, but he especially liked fairy tales. He could read them avidly, plunging into the world of omnipotence and magic. Letters and lines dispersed his imagination and brought dreams beyond the limits of everyday life - into the orbit of unimaginable possibilities. He read about walking boots and imagined how he himself puts on such boots and walks easily and joyfully - across rivers and lakes, through villages and villages, through pastures and forests. And his heart sank with delight that this was possible. Fairy tales gave hope: if all this is possible in fairy tales, then is it not possible to do it in reality? And he honestly tried - he put on his father's boots and took huge steps, imagining that grass is a forest, puddles are bays, and ants are people. He rolled an apple on a plate and imagined that he saw her picture at the bottom, and knew where his brother or sister was now and even talked to them.
In fact, the biographers of the “citizen of the universe” somehow underestimated the influence of fairy tales read in childhood on the formation of the future founder of rocket dynamics and national cosmonautics. Probably, it is believed that fairy tales are read to all children, and there is nothing so special about them. But fairy tales are seeds that germinate only on fertile soil. Asphalt can be generously sown, fertilized with high quality and watered conscientiously, but seedlings will sprout only where there were random cracks and at least a pinch of earth showed through. Little Tsiolkovsky was that happy accident in which folk wisdom found its connoisseur. He had not just a penchant for daydreaming, he lived in dreams. “I dreamed,” Tsiolkovsky himself later wrote, “of physical strength. I mentally jumped high and dreamed of the absence of gravity. I jumped off the fence to fly. I launched a kite and sent a box with cockroaches to a height along a thread. ”Kostya imagined that he himself was sitting there in that box and looking at everyone from above. And I thought: if cockroaches, which in no way could be at such a height due to their natural data, but ended up there thanks to the ingenuity of man, then wouldn’t a person himself be able to achieve the ability to climb to any height for himself? Faith in the reality of a dream - that's what fairy tales gave him about a magic carpet and a magic wand. One of his favorite toys was a small thin-film balloon that was inflated with hydrogen. Kostya dragged this balloon around with him on a string, and it was, perhaps, the only toy that he did not take apart. Although, maybe he just already knew that there was nothing inside.
SELF-EDUCATION IN MOSCOW
Tsiolkovsky's personal qualities were most happily inherited from his father and mother. Here is how he himself later described his parents: “Father was always cold, restrained, character and willpower prevailed in him. Among officials, he was known as red and intolerant for his ideal honesty. The view was gloomy. There was a terrible critic and debater .... And the mother was of a completely different warehouse - a sanguistic, hot, laughter, mocker and gifted nature. ”The son inherited perseverance and determination from his father, and talent and passion from his mother. A penchant for invention, innovation manifested itself in him from an early age. He made puppet skates, small houses, boats, carts. All this he cut out of cardboard and sealed with sealing wax. He made many windmills and their blades rotated like real ones, giving him great joy. He created his toy world and was a witty creator in it. He even made a lathe himself and sharpened wooden parts on it. The father has long paid attention to the technical inclinations of his son, but after the creation of this working machine, it became obvious that this was already serious. And when his Kostya found a mistake in the drawings of the "perpetual motion machine" that one of his father's comrades brought, then all doubts about the boy's unusual mindset disappeared. And in 1873, his father sent him to Moscow to enroll in a vocational school.
But by that time, the vocational school had been transformed into the Higher Technical School, and in order to enter there, not only a systemic education was required, but also the relevant supporting documents. But the young man still remained in Moscow. He decided to continue self-education, which was not new to him, because even as a child, as a result of an illness, he almost completely lost his hearing, he received his main knowledge from books. And now, in the Rumyantsev Library, he independently began to study.
Tsiolkovsky got up very early, had a modest breakfast and walked across half of Moscow to the library. By ten o'clock in the morning, by the time the reading rooms opened, Tsiolkovsky was always at the door. All day he sat over the textbooks of physics, mathematics, chemistry. In the evening, returning to his small room, which he rented from the laundress, Kostya set about experiments, experimentally checking what he had read during the day. He read mainly what could help him in solving practical problems of interest. And he thought about such things as, for example, the construction of metal balloons or the use of centrifugal force to raise vehicles above the Earth. He led an ascetic life. With the money that was sent to him from home, he bought, first of all, laboratory supplies and books. And he lived practically on bread and water. And it was a voluntary payment for his education. He always had long hair, but not because of fashion, but because he had no time to cut it. His clothes were covered in stains and holes from chemicals. Boys often ran after him in the street, teasing and laughing, but he paid no attention to them. He was all in thoughts about the experiments that he conducted continuously. Tsiolkovsky in Moscow studied not only theoretical technical books, he was also very interested in the humanities, he followed the advanced ideas of his time, read the filings of the Sovremennik and Domestic Notes magazines with articles by Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky. One of his favorite publicists was Pisarev.
Once Tsiolkovsky noticed that along with the books ordered by him in the reading room, they brought him several books that he did not ask for. But these books were quite consistent with his interests, although they were slightly from other areas of knowledge. He read them with enthusiasm. Similar cases began to be repeated regularly and, surprisingly, the books offered to him as a load always hit the mark. Each time, as he progressed, they became deeper and covered more and more important issues. Tsiolkovsky realized that they were helping his self-education. Later, he met his mysterious teacher. It turned out to be the librarian Nikolai Fedorov, the same Fedorov who would later write his main work, The Philosophy of the Common Cause, and for the first time in the history of mankind would throw such a decisive challenge to death, which no one had done before him. Fedorov's erudition was comprehensive and boundless. He easily and accurately selected the right books for both the railway engineer and the medical scientist. Even many famous people of that time who came to work in the library listened to his advice. “Fedorov distributed all his tiny salary to the poor,” Tsiolkovsky later recalled. - Now I understand that he wanted to make me his pensioner. But he did not succeed: I was too shy. But Fedorov was able to give Tsiolkovsky much more than money; in personal conversations, he strengthened his youthful dream of space flights with his own confidence that sooner or later humanity would make the entire alien universe habitable and dear. Fedorov spoke a lot about overcoming not only space, but also time. He was convinced that people would not only be able to become immortal, but would also restore life to all their ancestors who had ever lived on Earth. Fedorov talked about this so inspirationally and figuratively that these conversations had a serious impact on the young Tsiolkovsky. And he will return to reflections on these questions more than once.
A GIFT OF FATE
But Moscow still turned out to be more and more financially beyond the power of Tsiolkovsky. His father was getting old, was sick and could no longer support his son, as before. I had to return to Vyatka. And then the whole family moved to Ryazan. Tsiolkovsky continued self-education and experiments. But he did not stay long in Ryazan. He managed to get a position as a teacher in a county school - the Ministry of Education sent him to the city of Borovsk. Immediately after Christmas 1880, Konstantin Eduardovich, after saying goodbye to his father, left for his destination. In the same year, his father died, and he was left an orphan (he lost his mother ten years ago). In Borovsk, Tsiolkovsky did not immediately find a rented home for himself. It was a city of Old Believers, and they did not really want to take a stranger into their home. He was rejected everywhere. In general, nothing was ever easy for Konstantin Eduardovich, but when fate smiled at him, it was wide and sincere. In the house, in which he was nevertheless accepted, the tenant found himself not only a cozy spacious room for work and rest, not only attentive listeners at the evening samovar, but, in just six months, a bride and wife - in the person of the master's daughter Varvara. The young shy scientist got the most out of this house, in return only giving his last name first to his wife, and later to the name of the street on which this house stood - Kruglaya became Tsiolkovsky.
Returning from the church after the wedding, Konstantin Eduardovich first of all went to buy himself a lathe. Biographers are still arguing - why did he need it on such a day, and not at least a week later? We will not talk about the free way of thinking of modern biographers, but before there was an opinion that he was so detached from the world and could simply forget about his young wife, carried away by thoughts of experiments. But later they began to lean towards the fact that he simply found a reason to run away from uninvited guests, with whom it was difficult for him to communicate, and his wife reacted to this with understanding. She became his wife because she loved and understood him and in many ways replaced a caring mother. Varvara herself subsequently wrote about their wedding: “We didn’t have any feast, he didn’t take any dowry for me. Konstantin Eduardovich said that since we would live modestly, his salary would be enough.
A year after the wedding, a girl, Lyuba, was born to Konstantin Eduardovich and Varvara Evgrafovna, who later became her father not only a loving daughter, but also, according to A. Kostin (Tsiolkovsky’s grandson), “secretary, translator, consultant, defender and intercessor”, which itself in itself means another very generous gift of fate. Lyubov Konstantinovna lived until 1957, when the country celebrated the centenary of Tsiolkovsky by launching the first artificial satellite into orbit. The satellite overcame the embrace of its native Earth - both according to the biblical law “the time to hug and the time to leave the hug”, and in strict accordance with the calculations of the great scientist, who was not seriously considered such for so long.
LOCAL TEACHER FUN
Indeed, he did not lead an ordinary life. Today he would be called an extreme eccentric, but in those years the epithets that Borovo residents awarded Tsiolkovsky were more expressive. And what could one say when you go out sedately and solidly to the river in winter and suddenly you see a hairy man in an armchair on iron runners rushing across the ice in front of you at great speed, and in the hands of this man a huge black umbrella, acting as a sail. Even local horses shied away, seeing such a picture with horror, and then nervously neighing at night, as if foreseeing that because of such inventors, there would soon be no work left for them either in cities or in villages. A balloon glued by a young self-taught paper balloon with a hole at the bottom once made a huge commotion. And under that hole a splinter was burning, heating the air inside. Pol-Borovsk then, standing on the roofs, drove this fiery miracle away from their wooden houses, so that a fire would not happen. Thanks to one shoemaker who managed to catch the ball and take it to the local police station, where it was kept for a long time as material evidence. No, the inhabitants of a small town did not understand this strange inventor.
Only one child adored him. He was a very kind teacher, he never gave bad grades, he always talked a lot and interestingly about the Moon and about fast flights to it. As for his eccentricities, this is exactly what the inquisitive minds of children needed. Together with him they made a kite, carving it in the shape of a huge hawk. And the idea of tying candle lanterns of different colors to him from below did not cause discontent among any of his little helpers, but only delight. More than once in the evening at dusk, the Borovites, with their heads up, watched how high, high in the sky, a strange new star, consisting of three or four lights, floated. “Again the teacher launches his firebird!” - they laughed, pointing fingers at the sky, at the temple. They did not know that after half a century such lights would become familiar and people would stop paying attention to the planes flying over the city at night with flickering lights. They did not know that the eccentric gave them a fantastic opportunity to look at the world through the eyes of their descendants, to see a fragment from the future.
ONGOING EXPERIMENTS
Wherever Tsiolkovsky lived, wherever he moved, his books, cones, retorts, chemical reagents soon followed him. He was constantly in a state of experimentation. He lived in aeronautics and was interested in the aerodynamic properties of solids. He even managed to get small funds from the Academy of Sciences for the creation of a special blower tube for experiments. For a whole year he built it, and then continuously worked with it, and this work required considerable physical effort. Each time it was required to lift a heavy load to the very ceiling, which then, falling, spun the fan. Everything that has not been in this pipe: from all kinds of man-made structures to plates and lids from pots - everything was tested for the ability to fly and lift. The scientist was so immersed in his work that when he saw the first drawings and drawings of the infamous Eiffel Tower at that time, he immediately noticed that if you pull a tight cover on this tower, then in its average density it will resemble a wing, and in aerodynamic properties it will resemble a rocket .
Tsiolkovsky was interested not only in rocket flights, but also in the resulting overloads. He himself recalled: “I did experiments with different animals, exposing them to the action of increased gravity on special centrifugal machines. I did not manage to kill a single creature, and I did not have such a goal, but I only thought that this could happen. I remember the weight of the red cockroach, taken from the kitchen, I increased three hundred times, and the weight of the chicken - ten times. I did not notice then that the experience did them any harm. As one of the biographers of the scientist noted, it was not Belka and Strelka, who later fell under hundreds of film and photo lenses, were the first terrestrial creatures who underwent pre-cosmic training, but a nameless and unknown little chicken and a simple cockroach. Although their promotion seemed to be serious, on a centrifuge, and Tsiolkovsky himself untwisted them, but still they did not get fame and even monuments.
The rejection of others plagued Tsiolkovsky. The misunderstanding on the part of official science was especially distressing. “It is hard,” he wrote, “to work alone, for many years under adverse conditions, and not see any light in assistance.” But he, deaf, heard the growing whisper of the future, caught it and paid for his sharp instinct with the unsettled present. And his family paid with him. But he could not give up the experiments. It happened to him more than once in his life - the most dear and beloved brought the greatest suffering. For example, he simply adored the water and could walk for hours along the coast. Many of his experiments were connected with reservoirs, he even just really liked to swim. When moving to a new place, Tsiolkovsky, first of all, looked for a rented dwelling from those closer to the river. He strove for the water, but, unfortunately, the water also went towards him. If there was a strong flood in the city, which even the old-timers did not remember, then this happened precisely in the year when Konstantin Eduardovich rented a house in this city on the banks of a picturesque river. And he, along with his scientific and worldly belongings, together with his growing family, each time escaped to the attic, and even on the roof. It is not surprising that his very first house in Kaluga, bought with enormous hardships and savings, was flooded with grateful water so that it was not subject to restoration.
And very soon his most beloved son will bring him the greatest grief.
REFLECTIONS ON IMMORTALITY
The main topics of Tsiolkovsky's research were very diverse - from the use of solar energy to the creation of a universal human alphabet - but space problems gradually occupied an increasingly important place in them. And already in-depth theoretical development of space flights, he began in 1896, starting work on his famous essay "Investigation of world spaces by jet instruments." In this and subsequent works, he convincingly substantiated not only the possibility, but also the extreme necessity of conquering space. Settling other planets, flying to distant worlds is very important, he said, and from the point of view of the safety and survival of mankind. After all, the Earth can simply one day be destroyed by a huge asteroid, the Sun will someday go out, and our Galaxy itself is not immune from cataclysms that we don’t even know about yet. In the same work, which was published in the year of the death of his teacher in Moscow, Nikolai Fedorov (1903), Tsiolkovsky repeatedly addresses the problem of death. He writes: “There is no limit to the reason and improvement of mankind. His progress is eternal. And if this is so, it is impossible to doubt the attainment of immortality.” He was convinced that "the impossible today will become possible tomorrow."
AFTER THE REVOLUTION
Tsiolkovsky received the October Revolution with hope and joy. And the new time turned out to be favorable to him as well. Aging, suffering from illnesses, but still energetic Tsiolkovsky, by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars, "in view of the special merits of the inventor," a pension was assigned, allowing him not to teach, but to devote himself entirely to his beloved work. He was persistently called to move to Moscow, they allocated an apartment, but he no longer had the strength to settle down in a new place, and he remained to work in Kaluga. He began to publish scientific publications in popular journals, he began to receive letters. Everything turned out, finally, as it had once been dreamed of, but, unfortunately, simultaneously with the beginning of recognition, a devastating series of new losses fell upon him. Every odd year after the revolution became the year of the loss of the closest people. In 1919, his son Ivan, a quiet, obligatory assistant in all his experiments, died. He miscalculated his strength and overstrained himself when he was carrying a heavy bundle of firewood to heat the iron in his father's study. In 1921, Anna fell ill with tuberculosis and her daughter Anna quickly died out, and in 1923 her son Alexander, who worked as a teacher, passed away. Like Ignatius, he laid hands on himself. Parents were deeply worried, and even the fact that the works of Tsiolkovsky began to attract attention and receive support did not bring proper satisfaction and joy.
Death is too serious a thing to ignore. And Tsiolkovsky, continuing to work in the field of rocket dynamics and astronautics, is increasingly reflecting on death and is becoming more and more strengthened in the idea that it cannot be a given companion of man once and for all. He writes: “The mind of man will eventually be able to reach unlimited life. I am sure that mature worlds outside the Earth have long since produced such immortal beings.” Tsiolkovsky more than once, speaking about the immortality of people, drew analogies with a perpetual motion machine, the creation of which, as you know, is impossible. Such a comparison and such an argument among the opponents of immortality exists to this day: eternal life is just as absurd as a perpetual motion machine. Tsiolkovsky, of course, could not but admit that "that all our motors, left to their own devices, sooner or later deteriorate and stop working." But he saw a serious contradiction in this, and went further: "Only with the participation and observation of man, they can be eternal." It is the same with human life, because practical immortality presupposes the constant support of the life of each organism - the replacement of failed organs, their constant modernization, and much more as progress progresses. In the end, if today our life is a segment, even if it has increased in comparison with the past, this does not mean that tomorrow it will not be able to become a ray that is carried away into eternity.
CONFESSION
Meanwhile, in a country moving away from the hardships of civil war, devastation and famine, interest in space topics began to sharply increase. A powerful wave of enthusiasm caused by the construction of a new life, success in aviation and confidence in a happy future gave rise to a desire in people for something new and more exciting - for space flights. In 1924, the "Society of Interplanetary Communications" was created at the Military Scientific Society of the Academy of the Air Force, and Tsiolkovsky's work contributed primarily to its emergence. In 1927, the first international exhibition of interplanetary vehicles took place in Moscow, in which the scientist took an active part. Tsiolkovsky's priority in developing the theory of jet propulsion has now been recognized as indisputable abroad. Everywhere in the USSR, practical work began to unfold on the creation of rocket technology, a group was created to study jet propulsion, which included Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. Rocket enthusiasts approached the scientist with an invitation to participate in their work. “You understand,” they wrote, “how much your help is needed, how decisive your participation is and how desirable your work is! After all, you, dear Konstantin Eduardovich, are the father, there is no patriarch of the ideas of rocket flying. We are inviting you." But Tsiolkovsky was already over seventy, his strength was running out, and he helped only with the necessary consultations.
In 1932, the whole country solemnly celebrated Tsiolkovsky's seventy-fifth birthday. “What have I done to be so honored?” - he rested, refusing to go to the celebrations from Kaluga to Moscow. But the anniversary of the patriarch was no longer his personal affair, and it was much more difficult to escape from the holiday from the grateful people and government, as once from a wedding, under the guise of buying some kind of machine tool. “Celebrations, Konstantin Eduardovich, will serve to promote your ideas,” friends told him, who knew how to break stubborn resistance. And if for the sake of ideas he had previously voluntarily starved, now for the sake of ideas he had to eat, drink and walk. But in the end, he was satisfied with the celebrations, it was almost a summing up.
In 1935, his health began to deteriorate greatly. A most complicated operation was required, he did not agree to the last, but on September 8 he nevertheless left Kaluga, leaving his fellow countrymen in farewell: “What are you going to do? Is it the last time we see each other?" The operation took place under local anesthesia, and Konstantin Eduardovich asked the doctors in detail and in a businesslike manner about each stage. He endured it courageously. But he was not destined to survive this September. On the 19th, he died, having managed to write a letter to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in which he bequeathed all his work to the country and regretted that he had so little time.
Today, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky is recognized and duly appreciated as a forerunner of a completely new space age, as a thinker who inspired people to go into space and described how to implement it realistically. His well-known words that the Earth is the cradle of mankind, and the child does not remain in the cradle, are now taken for granted. We have even begun to grow out of this cradle, and sitting in the arena of the solar system, we are trying to get up. It is interesting for us to observe everything that surrounds us, and we know for sure that all that huge world around, which is still inaccessible, will soon be ours. And not only the one that we see through telescopes, but also another invisible one, beyond all conceivable and inconceivable limits. Tsiolkovsky always lived in the future. But not the everyday personal future that most people live, repeating repeatedly for themselves and their loved ones “everything will be fine”, but the future of all mankind, no longer at war, united, creative. He dreamed of the rapprochement of the inhabitants of the planet and perceived humanity itself as one organism - still very young, recently born and therefore not very intelligent. But everything is ahead: both infinite space and infinite life.
