Seeing the Space Age

Before the first airplane, Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) was working on plans to launch the world into the Space Age.

At age 9, due to scarlet fever, Tsiolkovsky become deaf. Embarrassed by his deafness, he felt that that his schoolmates made fun of him. Also, lacking sign language interpreters, Tsiolkovsky was not able to understand his teachers so his mother taught him at home. His mother died when Tsiolkovsky was 13 years old. Tsiolkovsky continued to study alone. Reading his brother’s school books, he passed the high school exam.

Tsiolkovsky went to Moscow where he took daily trips to the library to read and research on his favorite subjects—science and space. Already making plans for space travel, he taught himself calculus and trigonometry. Tsiolkovsky became a teacher and taught physics in high school.

After the fall of the Czar in 1917, the Communist Park took power and soon recognized the value of Tsiolkovsky's work. The government gave him a pension and made him an honorary member of the Air Force Academy. Most of Tsiolkovsky’s dreams of space travel have been realized, such as “Sputnik I” which went into space in 1957.

It was Tsiolkovsky who developed the math for the world’s first spaceships and satellites. The Soviets called Tsiolkovsky the “Father of the Space Age,” and in 1967, a crater on the moon was named after him.

Information on Tsiolkovsky was taken from a poster series based on Movers & Shakers: Deaf People Who Changed the World, a book by Cathryn Carroll and Susan M. Mather (1997, DawnSignPress, San Diego, CA). To purchase this book, visit:

www.amazon.com/Movers-Shakers-People-Changed-Storybook/

Click here for other stories in this issue