about the quoted person:Russian scientist, inventor and a pioneer in rocket and space research.tsiolkovsky was born on September 17, 1857, in the village of Izhevskoye, Ryasan Province, Russia. He was the son of a Polish forester who had emigrated to Russia. At the age of 10 he lost his hearing as the result of scarlet fever. After that he couldn't attend school and he never received any formal education. The knowledge and education he attained were achieved by himself. Tsiolkovsky later remembered that his hearing loss influenced greatly his future life. During all his life he tried to prove to himself and to others that he was better and more clever than others, even with his disability. After much success in teaching himself, his family sent him to Moscow to complete his education. Because of his proficiency in mathematics and the sciences, he eventually won a teaching post at Kaluga.

Tsiolkovsky, the schoolteacher, was consumed by his passion for the sciences. He tried his hand at science fiction and with the inspiration of Jules Verne's stories began to write about interplanetary travel. He soon introduced real technical problems into his writings, such as rocket control in moving into and out of gravitational fields.

Tsiolkovsky evolved from fiction writer to scientist and theoretician. Hypotheses and calculations followed on a broad spectrum of matters: gyroscopic stabilization; escape velocities from the Earth's gravitational field; the principle of reactive action; and the use of liquid propellants for rockets. His "Tsiolkovsky Formula" established the relationships between rocket speed, the speed of the gas at exit and the mass of the rocket and its propellant. This fundamental principle remains basic to contemporary astronautics.

He was made a member of the Soviet Academy of Science in 1919. He received a government pension in 1920, and died in 1935.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is generally considered the father of astronautics and rocket dynamics. Entering the world more than one hundred years before Sputnik became the first object rocketed into space, he prepared the way for it and all space exploration that followed. He also furthered studies on many principles commonly used in rockets today: specific impulse to gauge engine performance, multistage boosters, fuel mixtures such as liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the problems and possibilities inherent in microgravity, the promise of solar power, and spacesuits for extravehicular activity. Significantly, he never had the resources nor perhaps the inclination to experiment with rockets himself.