Canadian proposed space rocket in 1861, historian says

Rocket-based spaceflight was proposed 30 years earlier than previously thought by a Canadian university head, a space historian says.

Historian Robert Godwin says William Leitch of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., accurately described the concept of rocket-based spaceflight in 1861.

Previous histories of spaceflight have maintained that the first scientific proposal of rocket-powered space travel came at the end of the 19th century by Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and by American Robert Goddard.

Both claimed Jules Verne as their inspiration, but Godwin says Leitch published his thoughts four years before Verne’s famous “space gun.”

Robert Godwin’s findings were published Sunday in “The First Scientific Concept of Rockets for Space Travel.”

Robert Godwin says Leitch was a scientist who predicted that a rocket would work most efficiently space’s vacuum.

Agencies/Canadajournal

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