What would rocket technology be like if the French had colonized all of North America?

Although the Chinese get the credit for building the first rockets and I've learned in recent years that the rockets used to bombard Fort McHenry which gave their name to the lyric "Rockets' red glare" in the US national anthem were designed by William Congreve, a British inventor, I'm curious as to what rocket technology around the world would be like if the French had won the 1754-1763 war with Britain for control of eastern North America, because the founders of the United States were Englishmen and the idea of a multistage rocket had its genesis in Russia thanks to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

a reply to: Potlatch

Modern rocket technology is a product of the Germans in WW2.

Nothing to do with the Chinese, Russians, the French or the English.



The conflict of empires that lead to WW1 and WW2 would have happenned regardless if the French had maintained control on North America. I anything, France being spread too thin, the fall of France might have happened faster. The British would have resisted German invasion same as in our present history.

Germans would have developped the V2 rocket (Vengeance veapon) just the same as a response to British bombing of Germany

a reply to: Potlatch

" What would rocket technology be like if the French had colonized all of North America? "


Like Butta !

originally posted by: M5xaz
a reply to: Potlatch

Modern rocket technology is a product of the Germans in WW2.

Nothing to do with the Chinese, Russians, the French or the English.



The conflict of empires that lead to WW1 and WW2 would have happenned regardless if the French had maintained control on North America. I anything, France being spread too thin, the fall of France might have happened faster. The British would have resisted German invasion same as in our present history.

Germans would have developped the V2 rocket (Vengeance veapon) just the same as a response to British bombing of Germany

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky gets the credit for suggesting that access to outer space had to be accomplished by means of a multistage rocket, but he didn't get the chance to scrounge for materials to build an experimental multistage rocket to test his hypothesis. Had he asked Russia's czars to encourage Russia's nascent industrial sector to make necessary ceramic materials and alloys for a notional multistage rocket in quantity, then Russia could have been the first country to build a general-purpose multistage rocket, considering that German physicist Hermann Oberth in the 1910s came to the same conclusion as Tsiolkovsky that a multistage rocket was necessary to take place to outer space, though he did not have access to Tsiolkovsky's publications work in the first place.

Why the Germans were the first country to build a full-scale liquid-fuel rocket is worth investigating, but Russia sharing Tsiolkovsky's teachings with France and China would have allowed for French and Chinse scientists to create a multistage rocket of their own and allow France and China to join forces with Russia to leapfrog Germany or Britain in liquid-fuel rocket technology. I mean, a North America controlled by France after the seizure of Spanish possessions in North America would have given France enough financial resources to acquire materials suitable for a multistage rocket to work because France lagged greatly behind the UK in building industrial equipment during the late 1700s, and it would have created a rudimentary space-based telecom network to provide connectivity to rural French peasants.

i think we could have got a good price for canada, eh.

the french were pretty broke from helping us in the revolution.

as for rockets, i don't know.


might not have made any difference.

a reply to: Potlatch

Tsiolkovsky contributed to theory, but never built any rockets, not even motors.
Russia, and later the soviets, did not have the industrial/economy base to undertake the research the Germans did.

Even at the end of WW2, the soviets had NONE of the expertise or experience of the Germans.
China was industrially backwards until the 1970s

The French had NOTHING, well, except from some failed rocket engine demos in the 1930s by Robert Esnault-Pelterie during which the engine blew up, he lost four fingers and ,as a result, the French military lost interest. His claim to have independently developped the rocket equation in 1913, when Tsiolkovsky became world famous for his rocket equation in 1903, seems highly dubious.

American Robert Goddard had some success with smaller scale rockets int he 1920s and 30s . Also, his rocket equation better accounted for gravity and drag. However, Goddard never gained any government support. Worse, The New York Times mocked his research (but thus proving that back then as today, The New York Times is always wrong...)


Bottom line:
No Germans, no modern rocketry.

a reply to: sarahvital
One of my ancestors, Etienne Lessard, was one of founders of New France aka Quebec

He was born 400 years ago in 1623 - built some of first churches in the colony

As for rocketry France was rather late to the party, only in late 1950's and 60' did France start building their own rockets
The Gemstone family

From ENCYCLOPEDIA ASTRONAUTICA

www.astronautix.com...

Outlines Frances rocket/space programs