Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was born on September 17, 1857 in Russia. He got sick with scarlet fever when he was a ten years old causing him to became deaf.

Picture Courtesy of the Russian Space Web

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

His mom taught him how to read and write. He went to school in a town called Vyatka. When his mom died, he stopped going to school and decided to read books.

He moved to Moscow to study the books in the Moscow library.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Although scientists were impressed by him, he was poor so he decided to get a job. He started teaching math.

He had many ideas on how to create a flying machine but he didn’t have the money to make it. He dreamed about flying into space. He dreamed that people would live on other planets. He wrote about his dreams in books. He put bugs in little boxes and attached them to kites so they could fly.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Tsiolkovsky thought gravity could help a rocket fly. He thought hydrogen and oxygen could be used for fuel.

New Mexico Museum of Space History

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Finally in 1897 he created a small wind tunnel. Because of this he was given money to make a larger one.

He studied how fast a rocket would have to move to go into space. A war in Russia interrupted his work.

After the war he wrote more than 500 papers. A crater on the moon is named after him. It is named “Crater Tsiolkovsky.”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

He died on September 19, 1935 in Kaluga. He is honored in movies, on stamps and medals. There are statues of him and kids learn about him in school in Russia.

ReferencesLang, H. G., & Meath-Lang, B. (1995). Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky. In A Biographical Dictionary: Deaf Persons

in theArts and Sciences (pp.358-362). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Zac, A. (2001, 2009). Tsiolkovsky. Retrieved on June 4, 2008 from the Russian Space Web

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