Russian "scientist" Who Calculated Escape Velocities For An Object To Escape Earth's Gravity?

[gl556tr]

I read many moons ago, of a Russian man who, in the latter years of the 19 C calculated escape velocities for an object to escape Earth's gravity - and this before the first attempts in any form of flying had even been contemplated.
His name was something beginning with "Z": Zipolovski/Zxxxski. (Цуxxxx, I sure!)
I apologise for being so vague, but the recent resurge of interest in matters flights to the Moon, reminded me of this Russian man.
Can anybody give me his name - or possibly point me in the right direction for a successful find to references of his early successes.
Thank you.

[1ozzy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Tsiolkovsky

[gl556tr]

Yes, 1oz, that's him: Константи́н Эдуа́рдович Циолко́вский. Without him, Sergei Korolev, who was virtually the one-man Russian Sputnik projects, would have had even more of an uphill task.
For all their limited resources, the Russian boffins worked wonders, especially when one considers the massive army of people working with Wernher von Braun in America.

[1ozzy]

//1oz//

So I'm a "light weight" now ;-)

Darn, always wanted to play with the big boys!

[gangesboy]

Better than 28.34952 grams though !

[1ozzy]

Hee hee Gangesboy.

The briefer the better ;-/

[waterboatman]

Lightweight? Yeah. Right! ;o}

[douglas9401]

Och, you've just achieved escape velocity and are now almost weightless. :)

[Hymie]

I recall Bob Hope saying that the reason the Russians had beaten the Americans to put the first man in orbit was that Russia’s German scientists were better than American’s German scientists.

With the knowledge that it would require travelling at 7 miles a second to escape the earth’s gravity, led many thinking that such a speed was unattainable, and therefore human space travel impossible.

[Jonathan-Joe]

Konstantin_Tsiolkovsky may have contributed to the development of the rocket but surely mathematicians had calculated the value of escape velocity from earth much earlier. It can be derived directly from Newton's principles of gravity. Indeed this article http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Escape_velocity suggests that Newton himself had calculated it.

[Peter Pedant]

// .... Bob Hope saying ... the Russians had beaten the Americans to put the first man in orbit because Russia’s German scientists were better than American’s German scientists. //

the Russians at the end of the war had a KGB section to round up scientists - and werner von Braun like anyone/everyone else wanted to be liberated by the americans - like you know they had a pain in their guts

the russian "proton" always had more oomph than the american version - the germans being the only people who could get rockets to fly

[Peter Pedant]

escape velocity was taught to us in our maff A level course in 1968
it isnt exactly erm rocket science
and we got 18000 mph which isnt a mile away from
7 mi/sec

[gl556tr]

PP: ditto. I think we were all enthused by our physics and maths teachers, if we had not already had the bug of space euphoria at that time. I wished to be a "space man", as if it were like any other "after-school" step into the unknown.
Our physics teacher told us back then that the Proton was the better rocket, which had us silently wondering which side he was on! After all, those were Cold War days.