Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky

Twenty-nine printed papers on airplanes, dirigibles, astrophysics, aerodynamics, orthography, the future of human society, philosophy, scientific ethics, etc., including Tsiolkovsky's annotated catalogue of his own works (1927). Kaluga: published by the author, 1911–32



Together 29 volumes, various sizes.  Text diagrams and tables, folding diagrams; scattered chipping, variable browning, few stains.  original printed wrappers; variously preserved.

Cambridge 18; DSB 482-84; Èçäàííûå òðóäû (1927).

Twenty-nine printed papers on airplanes, dirigibles, astrophysics, aerodynamics, orthography, the future of human society, philosophy, scientific ethics, etc., including Tsiolkovsky's annotated catalogue of his own works (1927). Kaluga: published by the author, 1911–32 Together 29 volumes, various sizes. Text diagrams and tables, folding diagrams; scattered chipping, variable browning, few stains. original printed wrappers; variously preserved.
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The dream. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was the first man to advance the idea that reactive engines—rockets—could be used for propulsion in the vacuum of space; he was the first to recognize that artificial satellites and orbiting space stations were actually possible; he was the first to propose rockets powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen; he calculated the accelerations necessary to put a vehicle into Earth orbit and to break free of the Earth's gravitational field; he addressed physiological questions of life in zero gravity; he designed control rudders for steering rockets—and all this a generation or more before Goddard in the United States and Oberth in Germany.

A Ukrainian schoolteacher who had been struck deaf in childhood, Tsiolkovsky did not learn to read until he was seven or eight; during his teenage years his studied focused almost exclusively on physics, mathematics, mechanics, and aeronautics.  His first passion was for balloons, which he proposed be made out of metal.  In 1873 he failed the entrance examinations for the renowned Technical College at Moscow, but remained there for three year devouring the libraries.  He returned home in 1876, and earned a living at Vyatka as a private tutor.  He spent his private hours in a workshop that he had built in his home; and after three years applied for a teaching post.  He was accepted, and assigned to a school at Borovsk, near Kaluga. 

It was at Kaluga that Tsiolkovsky did the visionary work that made him famous, and here that he published hundreds of scientific papers.  In 1911 he wrote to the Russian engineer Boris Vorobiev, "mankind will not remain on the earth forever, but in pursuit of light and space, we will, timidly at first, overcome the limits of the atmosphere, and then conquer all the area around the sun."

Oberth wrote to Tsiolkovsky in 1929, "you have ignited the flame.  We shall not permit it to be extinguished; we shall make every effort so that the greatest dream of mankind might be fulfilled" (dsb).

Checklist: Defense of airships, 1911, 8 pages.  Nirvana, 1914, 16 pages.  A table of corrugated-steel dirigibles, 1915, 22 pages.  Additional technical data on constructing the metal shell for a dirigible without an expensive shipyard; with The Ledentsov Society's review of my dirigible, 1915, 10 pages.  Formation of the Earth and Solar Systems, 1915, 16 pages.  Air transport, 1918? 16 pages.  The gondola of a metal dirigible and its control systems, 1918? 24 pages.  Air-resistance and a high-speed train, 1927, 72 pages, one of 2,000 copies. A universal alphabet, orthography, and language, 1927, 12 pages, printed slip laid in, one of 2,000 copies; imperfect, wrappers lost.  Published works of T.E. Tsiolkovsky, 1927, 24 pages (Gublit 1074), one of 2,000 copies.  Future earths and mankind, 1928, 28 pages, one of 2,000 copies; marginal marks in purple ink on pages 8-9.  A corrugated-steel dirigible, 1928, 18 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  Supplement to The formation of solar systems, 1928, 18 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  Literary response, 1928, 40 pages, folding diagram, one of 2,000 copies.  My typewriter; with Engines of progress; with New information on my dirigible and latest responses; and with Minutiae, 1928, 32 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  The universal organization of mankind (Computations and tables), 1928, 32 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  The intellect and the passions, 1928, 28 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  The will of the universe; with, Unknown forces of the intellect, 1928 (colophon 1929), 21 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  The Earth's past, 1928 (colophon 1929),  21 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  A new airplane, 1929, 40 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  The present state of the Earth, 1929, 36 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  The pressure on a plane moving through the air, 1930 (colophon 1929), 48 pages, one of 2,000 copies, text ends on the lower wrapper recto.  Scientific ethics, 1930, 68 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  Design of a metal dirigible, 1930, 112 pages, one of 2,000 pages.  A reactive airplane (1930); excerpted from a larger manuscript, 1930, 24 pages, one of 2,600 copies.  Atlas of a corrugated-steel dirigible, 1 May 1931, 24 pages, one of 2,000 copies; French legends supplied in manuscript.  How to increase the energy of explosive (thermal) engines (October 1931), 1931, 16 pages, one of 2,000 copies.  A gas compressor, 1931, 36 pages, one of 1,000 copies.  A semi-reactive stratoplane, 1932, 32 pages, one of 2,000 copies.