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Throughout history there have been legends of ancient flight from magic carpets to chariots of fire to fire breathing dragons to wheels spinning within wheels, sometimes fiery wheels! All of which have been dismissed as legends. But are they?

In his book legends of ancient Chinese science Robert Silverberg says that Chinese myths tell of a legendary people the Chi Kung who traveled in “aerial carriages”.

In ancient Chinese scripts “The Records of the Scholars” it states the Han dynasty astronomer and engineer Chang Hang made a wooden bird that had a flight duration of up to a mile.

In 320 B.C., a book written by Ko Hung who was a mystic and alchemist wrote “some have made flying cars with wood from the inner part of the jujube tree, using ox leather straps fastened to revolving blades so as to set the machine in motion”. This was the description of a propeller!

The origin of space flight originates in ancient China with the development of gunpowder to include the development of rockets. Charcoal and sulfur had long been experimented with as ingredients of gunpowder or incendiary compounds.

 By 1044 BCE, the Chinese had learned that saltpeter added to the incendiary compound was a catalyst and amplified the explosion greatly At some point in the mid 9th century it was discovered that if you finely grind charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter to a ratio of 1:1:4 and pack the mixture into a closed container when ignited it will have an explosion! The first flying objects the Chinese developed were rocket powered arrows, then grenades and iron clad bombs, quite similar to ones used today.

The first two stage rocket is credited to the Chinese in the 11th century A.D. It was called the fire dragon rocket. While enroute rocket arrows were ignited and flew at great speeds from the mouth of the dragon! It was the first cluster two stage bomb!

When the Mong attacked Karfeng in 1232 B.C. which was the capital of what is now the Gin dynasty. The Gin were able to hold off the Mong's with a secret weapon. They would lower iron bombs from chains from a top of the city walls right into the mass of the attacking enemy.

They would also use an “arrow of flying fire” which whistled as it flew through the mass of attacking Mongol's exploding and sending the war elephants and horses into a panicked stampede.

One of the early purposes of the arrows of fire was to instigate stampedes, cause confusion among the war elephants that were commonly used in southwest and southeast Asia in ancient times.

When Alexander the Great in 329 BC was invading India his invasion was stopped by a strange attack from the skies. Alexanders army was using elephants in the forward elements of their formations when the “flying saucers” were dive bombing the elephants which went wild and started stampeding crushing foot soldiers and tearing through their camps.

Alexanders generals met with him and refused to proceed they turned around and went back to Bagdhad where Alexander died .

The Chinese inventor Wan Hu, in 1500 A.D, is credited with developing the first rocket propelled craft. It was essentially a chair with a wooden frame built around it; they strapped forty seven rockets to the frame, attached two very large kites to the top of the frame.

He then strapped himself into the chair, he signaled his servants to approach with torches, they simultaneously ignited the rockets, momentarily ignition took place with a large bang, with a large black cloud, Wan Hoo was instantly vaporized; end of story! There were several formulas for gunpowder. The alchemist Rodger Bacon used a formula of 7 parts saltpeter 5 parts of young hazelnut wood and five of sulfer.

 In 1280 AD the Syrian Al-Haseen-Ar-Rammah wrote a book the “Art of fighting on horseback with war engines”. Ar Rammah told of the importance of saltpeter in the incendiary process and gave ways of purifying the compound.

He also discussed rockets that he called “Chinese Arrow’s”. The Chinese also invented the first Roman Candles, flame throwers and also mortars. The Roman candles were loosely packed with nails or small stones. In the chronicles of the city of Ghent in 1313 AD states that “In this year the use of guns was found for the first time by a German monk.”

In 1326 a manuscript shows a primitive gun called vasa.The vasa was basically a dart gun. In 1340 King Edward III of England and the cities of Aachen and Cambrai all purchased gunpowder and guns. Guns evolved into cannons. Cannons evolved into long guns, which had better directional stability and accuracy. There were also short guns often called mortars.

Grenades were in use by the time of the Crusades. The Knight Templar’s brought this technology to medieval Europe. It wasn’t long before the “black powder musket” was developed and was cheap enough for the peasant classes to purchase.

This coincided with the revolution of independence of the peoples under the rule of monarchs. For the common man was now able to protect himself and his property against thugs, drunks, soldiers and thieves. All one in the same really. He could now face these aggressors on equal footing. “God created man; but Sam Colt made all men equal!”