History
Until the rise of space travel in the twentieth century, there was little distinction between orbital and celestial mechanics. The fundamental techniques, such as those used to solve the Keplerian problem (determining position as a function of time), are therefore the same in both fields. Furthermore, the history of the fields is almost entirely shared.
Johannes Kepler was the first to successfully model planetary orbits to a high degree of accuracy, publishing his laws in 1605. Isaac Newton published more general laws of celestial motion in his 1687 book, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
Read more about this topic: Orbital Mechanics
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)