Historical Origins of The Method
In his paper “Тем кто будет читать, чтобы строить” (To whoever will read in order to build ), published in 1938 but dated 1918–1919, Yuri Kondratyuk suggested that a spacecraft traveling between two planets could be accelerated at the beginning of its trajectory and decelerated at the end of its trajectory by using the gravity of the two planets' moons. In his 1925 paper "Проблема полета при помощи реактивных аппаратов: межпланетные полеты", Friedrich Zander made a similar argument.
However, neither investigator realized that gravitational assists from planets along a spacecraft’s trajectory could propel a spacecraft and that therefore such assists could greatly reduce the amount of propellant required to travel among the planets. That discovery was made by Michael Minovitch in 1961.
The gravity assist maneuver was first used in 1959 when the Soviet probe Luna 3 photographed the far side of Earth's Moon. The maneuver relied on research performed at the Department of Applied Mathematics of Steklov Institute.
Read more about this topic: Gravity Assist
Famous quotes containing the words historical, origins and/or method:
“After so many historical illustrations of the evil effects of abandoning the policy of protection for that of a revenue tariff, we are again confronted by the suggestion that the principle of protection shall be eliminated from our tariff legislation. Have we not had enough of such experiments?”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry].” He said he didn’t know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate’s coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)