James Corcoran, age 13, of Great Falls, Mont., for his question:
WHEN WAS THE FIRST ROCKET USED?
Scientists tell us that the Chinese were the inventors of the rocket and that the army in China first put a rocket into use in the early A. D. 1200. By 1300, a bit less than 100 years later, the use of rockets had spread throughout much of Asia and Europe.
The first rockets were described as arrows of flying fire. They burned a substance called "black powder" which was made of charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter. Most of the early rockets were used in fireworks displays.
During the early 1800s, British army officer William Congreve developed a rocket that could carry explosives. Some of his rockets weighed as much as 60 pounds and could travel as far as a mile and a half. The rockets were used against the United States during the War of 1812.
An English inventor named William Hale improved the accuracy of Congreve's rocket. He substituted three fins for guiding the rocket, replacing an earlier long wooden tail.
U.S. troops used the Hale rockets in the Mexican War that ended in 1848. During the Civil War in America, both the Union and Confederate troops used rockets in some battles.
The father of the modern rocket was American scientist Robert Goddard. He conducted the first successful launch of a liquid propellant rocket in 1926. The rocket went up 184 feet into the air, climbing at a speed of about 60 miles per hour.
During the 1930s, rocket research went forward in Germany, Russia and the U.S. During World War II, German rocketeers under the direction of scientist Wernher von Braun developed the powerful V 2 guided missile that was used to bomb London.
Scientists in the U.S. during the early 1940s conducted the first high altitude rocket research on captured V 2s.
After the war, von Braun and more than 200 other German scientists came to the U.S. to continue their rocketry work. Some other German rocket experts went to the Soviet Union.
Capt. Charles Yeager of the U.S. Air Force made the first supersonic or faster than sound flight on Oct. 14, 1947, using an airplane called the X 1 that was rocket powered. Another rocket plane, the X 15, raised the altitude record in 1967 to more than 67 miles and set a new speed record of 4,520 mph, or more than six times the speed of sound.
The Space Age started on Oct. 4, 1957, when the USSR launched the first artificial satellite with a three stage rocket. This first space traveler was called Sputnik I.
The U.S. Army launched the first American satellite, Explorer I, on Jan. 31, 1958. A Juno I rocket was used on this launch.
A Soviet rocket put the first man into space. Maj. Yuri Gagarin went into orbit around the earth on April 12, 1961.
America's first traveler in space was Cmdr. Alan Shepard Jr. He made his flight on May 5, 1961, with the help of a Redstone rocket.