Rocket Dreams from the 1600s

Cyrano de Bergerac, a French writer from the 1600s, imagined rockets long before scientists or filmmakers did. In his 1657 story about a journey to the Moon, he described a machine that could lift a person into space by attaching fireworks to it. Though fanciful, he also attempted to explain how such a device might work using the physics of his time.

A Long‑Standing Idea

• Ancient Roots – The Greeks spoke of fire‑propelled devices, and Chinese engineers built the first real rockets in the 11th century. These simple tubes filled with gunpowder shot out a projectile, using fuel to push against air or vacuum—a principle that underlies modern missiles, fireworks, and space launch vehicles.
• Early 20th Century Breakthroughs – Russian thinker Konstantin Tsiolkovsky developed a scientific theory of rocketry, arguing that the Moon was reachable. A few years later, American Robert Goddard fired a liquid‑fuel rocket in 1926, proving that rockets could be built for real missions. These advances turned space travel from fiction into engineering reality.

Cyrano’s Ahead‑of‑Its‑Time Vision

• Predating Modern Theory – Cyrano’s 1657 novel predates Tsiolkovsky and Goddard by more than a century, showing how imaginative writers can lead science.
• Arthur C. Clarke’s Praise – In 1952, Clarke noted Cyrano as the first to write about rockets that could carry people into space. Clarke also highlighted Cyrano’s prediction of a ramjet engine, still used in modern military aircraft and missiles.
• Scientific Missteps – Cyrano imagined the rocket’s engine pointing upward to lift it, rather than using thrust from below as we know today. This mistake reflected the limited scientific knowledge of his era; people still speculated about landing on the Sun.

Legacy and Inspiration

Today, we have landed rovers on Mars and plan crewed missions to the Moon again with Artemis II. Cyrano’s ideas remind us that early visionaries, even when wrong in details, can inspire future generations. Their bold guesses push scientists to explore new possibilities and prove that what seems impossible now can become ordinary tomorrow.