Chinese astronaut from four centuries ago? Well, good story, anyways.

Found this on CNN at about the same time the Coast to coast website did:

www.cnn.com...


It's about a Chinese government minister who, centuries ago, tried to send himself into space via 47 rockets.... To discover his fate, you have to read the story

that was actually quite a sad story. It reminds me of that...can't remember the details but basically some guy was some speed chaser on a lake trying to break a speed record. Eventually it got so fast it just kind of exploded. However, after the accident no remains of vehical nor man could be found so the story went that he must have went so fast he travelled in time (delorian style). Of course it was really known that the thing blew up and burnt so bad that there was nothing left to find, but it's nice to pretend the unbelievable.

I kind of thought of that as a romantic story... You know, a "die reaching for the stars" type of deal.

Oh well... I hope poor Wan Hu gets a spaceship named after him one day. Does anyone know if he is, technically, the first 'attempted' astronaut?

He deserves to have a ship named after him and probably the title of first attempted astronaut as well. Thanks for the link.

Here's some more info on early Chinese rockets:

www.iki.rssi.ru...

Hahaha,

What a wing nut, personally I think he's a bit of a bonehead for not testing anything first. He may be the first attempted astro-NOT. It sounds as he was a casualty of combustion in the end and probably didn't get much closer to the stars than if he had have climbed a tree.

I know Trial and Error lol at least he went out with a bang.

It's amazin' what you can do with bamboo and some gunpowder!

The best part of the article was the description of his servants scurrying away after lighting 47 solid fuel rockets....


Not that this is really funny. He is a genuine hero, albeit one who made a major miscalculation.


...But, who knows... perhaps the aliens beamed him away at the last minute, seeing him as Earth's first bona fide space explorer. His remains were never found.

...or he just was blown into dust particles.