History of aviation and spaceflight
80 inventions by year: what each evolved from and what it led to.
How the inventions are connected
- Kite → Glider → Aeroplane → Jet airliner
- Autogyro → Helicopter → Tiltrotor
- V-2 rocket → R-7 rocket → Soyuz
| Year | Invention | What it is | Evolved from | Led to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 BC | Kite | A tethered surface lifted by the wind. | Glider, Space frame | |
| 1232 | Rocket | A vehicle driven by jet thrust; gunpowder rockets came from China. | Fireworks | Liquid-propellant rocket engine, Solid rocket motor, Guided missile |
| 1732 | Pitot tube Henri Pitot | A sensor of flow speed from pressure. | ||
| 1783 | Parachute | A canopy that slows a fall; the knapsack parachute is Kotelnikov’s, 1911. | Paraglider | |
| 1783 | Hot air balloon | The Montgolfier brothers’ balloon. | Airship | |
| 1852 | Airship | A steerable powered balloon (Giffard, Zeppelin). | Hot air balloon | |
| 1871 | Wind tunnel | A facility for blowing air over models (Wenham; TsAGI). | ||
| 1888 | De Laval nozzle | A converging–diverging nozzle that accelerates gas to supersonic speed. | Steam turbine | |
| 1891 | Wing | A surface that generates lift. | ||
| 1891 | Glider | An unpowered aircraft (Lilienthal). | Kite | Aeroplane |
| 1899 | Wing warping Wright brothers | The Wrights’ way to control roll by twisting the wing. | Aileron | |
| 1900 | Blimp | An airship without a rigid frame. | ||
| 1903 | Aeroplane | A powered heavier-than-air aircraft; the Wright brothers’ Flyer. | Glider | Jet airliner |
| 1903 | Wright Flyer | The first controlled powered aeroplane flight. | Bicycle | |
| 1903 | Biplane | An aircraft with two wings, one above the other. | ||
| 1903 | Landing gear | An aircraft’s supports for takeoff and landing. | ||
| 1908 | Aileron | A movable part of the wing for roll control. | Wing warping | |
| 1909 | Airport | A complex for receiving aircraft. | ||
| 1910 | Seaplane | An aircraft that takes off from water. | ||
| 1910 | Cockpit | The crew’s place with the instruments. | ||
| 1911 | Swashplate | A mechanism that changes the pitch of the blades (Yuriev). | ||
| 1912 | Autopilot | Automatic control of an aircraft (Sperry, gyroscope-based). | ||
| 1914 | Flaps | Extendable surfaces that increase lift. | ||
| 1920 | Retractable landing gear | Landing gear that folds away in flight. | ||
| 1923 | Autogyro | A craft with an autorotating rotor (de la Cierva). | Helicopter | |
| 1926 | Liquid-propellant rocket engine | An engine on liquid fuel and oxidizer (Goddard; Tsiolkovsky’s idea). | Rocket | |
| 1928 | Altimeter | A barometric height instrument (Kollsman). | Barometer | |
| 1929 | Attitude indicator | A gyroscopic indicator of the aircraft’s attitude. | ||
| 1929 | Flight simulator | Link’s trainer for teaching pilots. | ||
| 1929 | Air traffic control | Controlling flights from the ground. | ||
| 1938 | Pressurized cabin | A cabin that keeps its pressure (Boeing 307). | ||
| 1939 | Turbojet engine | An engine that produces thrust with a jet (Whittle, von Ohain). | ||
| 1939 | Helicopter | An aircraft with a main rotor (Sikorsky). | Autogyro | Tiltrotor |
| 1939 | Main rotor | A helicopter’s rotating wing. | ||
| 1942 | Solid rocket motor | An engine running on solid propellant. | Rocket | |
| 1942 | V-2 rocket | The first long-range ballistic missile. | R-7 rocket, Saturn V | |
| 1943 | Afterburner | Burning extra fuel behind the turbine. | ||
| 1945 | Turboprop | A gas turbine that turns a propeller. | ||
| 1945 | Cargo aircraft | A transport aircraft. | ||
| 1949 | Ramjet | An engine without a compressor — the oncoming air does the compressing. | ||
| 1949 | Jet airliner | A passenger aircraft with jet engines (Comet, Tu-104). | Aeroplane | |
| 1953 | Flight recorder | The “black box” (Warren). | ||
| 1957 | Multistage rocket | A rocket that drops its spent stages (R-7). | Reusable rocket | |
| 1957 | R-7 rocket | Korolev’s Soviet rocket that launched the first satellite and Gagarin. | V-2 rocket | Soyuz |
| 1957 | Artificial satellite | A spacecraft in orbit around the Earth. | ||
| 1957 | Launch complex | A structure for launching rockets. | ||
| 1957 | Sputnik 1 | The first artificial Earth satellite. | ||
| 1957 | Space debris | Defunct objects in orbit. | ||
| 1958 | Fly-by-wire | The control surfaces move on signals from a computer. | ||
| 1958 | Heat shield | Protects a spacecraft from heating on atmospheric entry. | ||
| 1959 | Jet bridge | A movable passageway for boarding passengers. | ||
| 1959 | Space probe | Luna 1, the Voyagers. | ||
| 1960 | Weather satellite | A satellite for observing the weather (TIROS-1). | ||
| 1960 | Turbofan | A jet engine with a large fan. | ||
| 1961 | Spacesuit | A suit for space (SK-1). | Diving suit | |
| 1961 | Vostok 1 | The spacecraft of the first human spaceflight (Gagarin). | ||
| 1962 | Communications satellite | A relay in orbit; Clarke proposed the geostationary orbit. | ||
| 1963 | Hang glider | A light glider with a flexible wing (Rogallo). | ||
| 1964 | Ion thruster | An engine that accelerates ions with an electric field. | ||
| 1966 | Reaction wheel | A flywheel for turning a satellite. | ||
| 1966 | Docking | Joining spacecraft in orbit. | ||
| 1966 | Ekranoplan | A craft that flies over water on ground effect (Alekseyev). | ||
| 1967 | Saturn V | The super-heavy rocket of the Apollo programme. | V-2 rocket | |
| 1967 | Soyuz | A crewed spacecraft and launch vehicle. | R-7 rocket | |
| 1968 | Supersonic airliner | The Tu-144 and Concorde. | ||
| 1969 | Lunar module | The Apollo lander. | ||
| 1970 | Lunokhod | A self-propelled vehicle on the Moon (Lunokhod 1). | Mars rover | |
| 1970 | Star tracker | A camera that finds orientation from the stars. | ||
| 1971 | Space station | A long-term crewed station (Salyut 1, the ISS). | ||
| 1978 | GPS (satellite navigation) | Finding a position from satellite signals. | Map, Radio navigation | |
| 1981 | Space Shuttle | A reusable orbital spacecraft. | ||
| 1982 | GLONASS | Russian satellite navigation. | ||
| 1985 | Paraglider | A parachute wing. | Parachute | |
| 1989 | Tiltrotor | A craft with tilting rotors (V-22). | Helicopter | |
| 1990 | Space telescope | A telescope in orbit (Hubble). | ||
| 1997 | Mars rover | A rover on Mars (Sojourner, Curiosity). | Lunokhod | |
| 1998 | International Space Station | A modular orbital station. | ||
| 2003 | CubeSat Jordi Puig-Suari, Bob Twiggs | A small satellite in a 10 cm format. | ||
| 2010 | Quadcopter (drone) | An uncrewed aircraft with four propellers and stabilizing electronics. | ||
| 2015 | Reusable rocket | A rocket with a returning first stage (Falcon 9). | Multistage rocket |