The father of astronautics

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was a cheerful, eccentric, self-educated genius. Deaf from scarlet fever at childhood, he had no formal schooling. But he was a natural mathematician, a practical inventor, a writer of science fiction and a research worker. He was born in 1857 in Kaluga. In March, 1883 Tsiolkovsky completed an extraordinary work Free Space, on how it was possible to orbit a sputnik around the Earth. This was probably the first use of the word “sputnik”.

He discussed how to create sputniks and the speed of their movement in orbit. Sixty-two years later, when the first sputnik was launched, it orbited at a height of about 300 versts and its speed reached eight versts a second, as the old scientist had told.

This self-taught scientist was not interested only in the theory of space travel. In 1878 he constructed a primitive centrifuge to test - on chickens and mice - the effect of acceleration and overloading on living organisms.

At this time, too, he sketched instruments which could simulate conditions of weightlessness on the ground. Now all these sketches and manuscripts are in his museum-home at Kaluga, about 100 miles west of Moscow.

In his work on the effects of speed he developed the principle of hermetically sealed space capsules similar to the one used by Gagarin. Experiment on stresses on the human body is still carried today.

In 1903 Tsiolkovsky published the Scientific Review on Space Research by Jet Engines, a work which is widely read today by specialistics in this field.

In his modest cottage at Kaluga, in the time he could spare from teaching mathematics at a local school, he carried out his scientific work, but he was poorly paid and had no money to finance experiments. His life changed with the revolution, and practically everything he wrote saw the light of day. The principles for multi-stage rockets were describes by Tsiolkovsky. On his 75^th birthday meetings were held throughout the Soviet Union to honour him the “Red Banner of Labour”. He died in 1935 confident that his lifetime’s work would be realized.

Notes:

scarlet fever - скарлатина

space travel - космические полеты

he was poorly paid - ему мало платили

2. Переведите на английский язык следующие предложения:

1. Константин Циолковский был прирожденным математиком, писателем-фантастом и ученым.

2. Спустя 62 года был запущен первый спутник.

3. Ученый интересовался не только теорией космического полета.

4. Циолковский опубликовал научную статью по исследованию космического пространства с помощью реактивного двигателя.

5. Он проводил свои научные работы в своем скромном доме в Калуге.

6. Принципы многоступенчатой ракеты были описаны Циолковского.

3. Ответьте на вопросы:

1. What sciences was Tsiolkovsky interested in?

2. What did Tsiolkovsky write about Earth sputniks?

3. What experiments did he make with the centrifuge?

4. Did he know about the phenomenon of weightlessness?

5. Which of Tsiolkovsky's principles was used by Gagarin?

6. What do know about Tsiolkovsky's museum-home in Kaluga?

TEXT 8

1. Прочитайте текст "Albert Einshtein", переведите его.