Paragraph on “How did rockets originate and develop?” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

How did rockets originate and develop?

Rockets were first known to be used in 1232, when the Mongols were advancing into China. While besieging a Chinese city, they came under attack from rockets carrying fire. The Chinese had invented gunpowder long before, and developed their fire rockets from rockets used in fireworks. However, gun-power came to be used to fire cannons and rockets were little used thereafter.

In 1420, an Italian named Joanes de Fontana suggested that rocket weapons could be disguised as birds flying through the air, hares running across land or even fishes swimming through water to fool the enemy, though it seems that no one took him seriously. In

about 1600, sticks were added to rockets to guide them but still little use was made of rockets. This changed in about Moo, when the Indians bombarded British forces with large rockets made of iron tubes with bamboo sticks. Sir William Congreve, a British engineer took up the idea and improved the rocket for military purposes. Congreve’s rockets exploded and caused fires and, in the early1800s, were used with great success by the British against enemy forces and cities.

William Hale, another Briton, improved the rocket by using fins to guide its flight in-stead of a stick, but the rocket again became outmoded as guns improved. It was still used in fireworks and in rescue work, both as a distress signal and to fire lines to wrecked ships.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian, developed the principles of spaceflight at the turn of the century. Experiments were made in Germany and the United States in the 1920S and 19305 to build bigger and bigger rockets. The German effort resulted in the first missiles bombarding England in World War II. Their designer, Wernher von Braun, went to America after the war and there built the rockets that took men to the Moon.