К.Э. Циолковский - сын земли Рязанской
методическая разработка по английскому языку (8 класс)

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857 – 1935)

“The Earth is the cradle of the mind,

but we cannot live forever in a cradle”.

K. E. Tsiolkovsky

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky is considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry andastronautics. He theorized many aspects of human space travel. His works later inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers such as Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko and played an important role in the development of the Soviet and Russian space programms.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky wrote about his birth: “A new citizen of the universe appeared, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky”. It happened on September 17, 1857 in the village of Izhevskoye, Ryazan Province.

His father, a Polish forester, had emigrated to Russia. His mother was of mixed Volga Tatar and Russian origin. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was not from a rich family, but a very large one; he had 17 brothers and sisters.

Tsiolkovsky grew restless: climbing the roofs and trees, jumping from a great height. Parents called him "bird". Konstantin also loved to dream out loud and "paid his younger brother" to listen to his "nonsense."

At the age of 10 he lost his hearing as the result of scarlet fever. After the illness, the boy began to handmake: he drew drawings of cars with wings, and even created an aggregate that moved with steam power.

At this time the family lived in Vyatka as father had problems with work but in Vyatka there was a great Polish community to help.

Konstantin tried to study in a regular school. He remembered: “I didn’t hear the teachers at all or only heard some sounds.” It lasted for three years, so he left school and was self-taught. His books were his teachers, and he read every book in his father's library. Tsiolkovsky later remembered that his hearing loss influenced greatly his future life: during all his life he tried to prove to himself and to others that he was better and cleverer than others, even with his disability.

When he was 13, his mother died. Father watched Konstantin’s crafts and many amazing mechanisms and believed in his abilities. He gave his son money and sent to enter Moscow Higher Technical School (now Bauman MSTU). But Konstantin did not enter the school, he entered the only city free library and studied science.

Tsiolkovsky's poverty in Moscow was monstrous. He did not work, received 10–15 rubles a month from his family and could only eat black bread: “Every three days I went to the bakery and spent 9 kopecks for bread there. So I lived 90 kopecks per month, ”he recalled. For all the rest money, the scientist bought "books, pipes, mercury, sulfuric (серная) acid" - and other materials for the experiments. Tsiolkovsky wore rags. It happened that on the street the boys teased him: “What is it, mice, have you eaten your pants?”

While in Moscow, at the age of 15, Tsiolkovsky was tutored by a brilliant Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorovitch Fedorov, who was working in the library. Every day from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. Konstantin studied scienses: elementary mathematics, physics, mechanics, chemistry and others. For three years, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky fully coped with the gymnasium programm, as well as a part of the university one. At about this time he first dreamed about the possibility of space flight.

In 1876, after his coming back to his father's home in Vyatka, Konstantine began to give private lessons. Tsiolkovsky was a talanted and eccentric teacher.

In 1878 Tsiolkovskys returned to Ryazan. Konstantin studied physical and mathematical sciences. A year later, after passing exams, he recieved his Teacher's Certificate, and worked as a math teacher in Borovsk, Kaluga Province.

In 1880-1892 (Borovsk period) he began his scientific research in air baloon building, life in free space, aerodynamics and philosophy. It was also at that time that he married. Together with his wife Varvara they had 3 daughters and 4 sons.

Tsiolkovsky gave all his strength to science and spent almost all his teachers salary of 27 rubles on scientific experiments. His first scientific works were “The Theory of Gases”, “Mechanics of the Animal Body” and others.

The main project of Tsiolkovsky at that time was the dirigible worked on hot air. Tsiolkovsky asked scholars to donate 300 rubles to him for the construction of a large metal model of the dirigible, but no one gave him any material assistance.

Then Tsiolkovsky was interested in the stars. In 1887, he wrote a small novel "On the Moon". A significant part of the descriptions and predictions made by him in his work later came true.

In 1892-1935 he lived and worked in Kaluga.

Since 1892 Tsiolkovsky worked as a teacher of physics at women's college. To cope with his illness, the scientist made a "special auditory tube", which he pressed to his ear when the students answered the subject.

It was here in Kaluga that he became a well known scientist.

He published his theories of space flight and inter-planetary travels. In Kaluga he wrote his “Cosmic Philosophy” and dreamed about the far distant future of humanity.

The scientist developed the concept of a liquid rocket engine.

His experiments showed that it would be possible to travel out into space in rockets and even to set up space stations around the Earth.

He calculated the speed necessary to enter the Solar System.

Tsiolkovsky presented many theoretical and practical studies which formed the basis for Soviet and Russian rocket industry.

He was made a member of the Soviet Academy of Science in 1919.

K.E.Tsiolkovsky wrote over 500 scientific works, but never created any rockets himself. He influenced many young Russian engineers and designers. Among these was Sergey Korolev, who became the "Chief Designer" of the Soviet space programm, who launched humanity into space with Sputnik, Laika and the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

Since 1932 it was known about the incurable disease of a scientist. But Tsiolkovsky continued to work. He said: “To finish the job, I need another 15 years.” But this time he did not have.

"Citizen of the universe", the father of cosmonautics died on September 19, 1935 at the age of 78 in Kaluga and was buried there.

But we still remember and are proud of our great countryman Tsiolkovsky.

There are a lot of monuments and museums.

The town Uglegorsk in Amur Oblast was renamed Tsiolkovsky by Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2015.

In his honour were named: ships, planes, streets.

The most prominent crater on the far side of the Moon and asteroid

There is a statue of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Queensland, Australia.