"Did you publish an article about a flight to the Moon?" I asked. "Yes, we did." "But don't you know that in our country Tsiolkovskii has been working on this for thirty years?" "Sorry, who did you say?" "Tsiolkovskii; " "But that's Utopia... The editorial board does not believe in his project. It is interesting but improbable." "I can bring you a long article by Tsiolkovskii on this subject published in 1903— I have it: " "What is the title?" I was asked.
"It is entitled 'Exploration of Interplanetary Space with Reaction Vehicles': " "It is strange that the editorial board knows nothing about this subject. Incidentally, is it true that Tsiolkovskii is dead?" "No, he is alive and well. He lives in the town of Kaluga and is con tinuing his research on this subject." "All right. Thanks for the information. We shall consult some aviation experts. We are connected with some prominent scientists. They will answer our inquiry. Contact us in two or three days." Three days later I again called the editorial office and spoke to the same worker (F. Kapelyush). He "Yes, yes! The editorial office has made inquiries in aviation circles. The most prominent experts think that rockets are absurd, and that the proposals of the German and American scientists are of no practical interest. In other words, they are Utopian, just as we stated in our article." "Just a moment," I interrupted, "Tsiolkovskii's work was substantiated many years ago... and therefore the priority is his... " "Priorities in Utopian writings," interrupted Kapelyush in his turn, "are of no interest to science, and therefore our newspaper finds no need to deal with this affair. The item that was published should be regarded as one of those 'scientific curiosities' with which the bourgeois scientists amuse themselves! Remember Cyrano de Bergerac or Jules Verne! Flights to the Moon— these are all old fantasies! " It was quite clear to me that I could not count on the newspaper to restore Russian priority in this field. At that time Tsiolkovskii's idea was not embraced by anyone because it was years ahead of itself; Many avia tion theoreticians were unable to visualize the engineering possibilities of the approaching decades. Yet, these possibilities were envisaged by Tsiolkovskii with the penetrating eye of his genius, and by those who possessed imagination— imagination without blinkers— imagination of people who are not tempted to kneel before contemporary idols, but who look far into the future with their eagle eyes.
When Professor Oberth's book "Die Rakete zu den PlanetenrNumen" ("The Rocket into Interplanetary Space") was published in 1923 nobody was concerned with restoring Tsiolkovskii's priority. Even engineers who were beginning to have some glimmer of rocket dynamics did not move a finger in defense of the priority of our own scientist Tsiolkovskii. The unanimous opinion in engineering circles was that Prof. Oberth was a real scientist who was engaged in intensive studies of the problem of jet pro pulsion, whereas Tsiolkovskii was only a self-taught amateur who had closely approached the subject, but who certainly could not compete with a European scientist. This utterly fallacious concept was based on a long standing tradition, very tenacious, but unpatriotic and contemptible; it stated that everything that was made in Russia was bad while everything foreign was good! ... This deeply rooted prejudice also governed the attitude toward Tsiolkovskii's work— patronizing and supercilious. There were certainly people who were of a different opinion, mainly young people. If I am not mistaken, the appearance in newspapers of an article "Is this Utopia?" was followed by an article in defense of Tsiolkovskii's priority published by "The Association of Naturalists" inspired by engineer Kazhinskii, a man of progressive ideas. However, his was a voice in the wilderness, and this isolated article could not influence world opinion. Bracing myself I telephoned many prominent aviation experts. These telephone interviews left me with a feeling of complete isolation. Nobody paid any attention to the newspaper article nor to rocket dynamics itself. One of the experts answered by query as follows: "All this is nonsense— it is not worth talking about. Let these dreamers write. It has nothing to do with science." I was stunned by such conservatism and the apparently total lack of comprehension. Nobody was concerned with jet propulsion. Together with a few other enthusiasts, I considered Tsiolkovskii's work remarkable and completely convincing; I could not grasp this total rejection of his work. Therefore I undertook the difficult task of reclaiming the true priority for Tsiolkovskii.