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When most people think about rockets, they imagine the 20th century: NASA, Werner von Braun, the Moon landing. Yet the story begins much earlier. In the heart of 16th-century Europe lived a man whose ideas were so advanced that they resemble modern aerospace engineering. His name was Conrad Haas, and his forgotten manuscript reveals a vision that should not have existed in his century.
A brilliant engineer living centuries too early
Haas worked as a military engineer in the Habsburg Empire. Although gunpowder weapons dominated the battlefield, he spent his life exploring something far more ambitious — the possibility of creating rockets that could travel higher, faster, and farther than anything known in his time. He designed weapons for the empire, but his imagination always pointed upward, toward the sky.
The mysterious manuscript rediscovered in Romania
The breakthrough came in 1555, when Haas completed a large illustrated manuscript titled Vom Feuerwerkbuch (“The Book of Fireworks”). It remained hidden for nearly four hundred years until historians rediscovered it in the library of Sibiu, Romania. Inside, they found something astonishing: more than just instructions for fireworks. Haas had drawn complex rocket systems, fuel chambers, ignition mechanisms, and even detailed aerodynamics.
Several illustrations shocked modern researchers. They showed rockets with:
- multi-stage bodies, where one part separates mid-flight
- side boosters, similar to those used on the Space Shuttle
- conical noses for better aerodynamics
- stabilizing fins, a key element of modern missiles
No one in the 1550s should have understood these concepts — yet Haas did.
The first true description of a multi-stage rocket
One of Haas’s most extraordinary ideas was the multi-stage rocket. He described how the first stage lifts the rocket until its fuel burns out. Then it separates, and the next stage ignites. This simple principle is the foundation of every modern space mission.
SpaceX, NASA, ESA — all of them use a concept that a lone engineer sketched almost 500 years earlier.
Solid fuel, liquid fuel and early hybrid engines
Haas also experimented on paper with different fuel types. He mentioned both solid propellants and mixtures that resemble early liquid fuels. Some historians even argue that his hybrid designs show surprising scientific intuition — the idea of combining different propulsion systems to gain more thrust.
This makes Haas one of the earliest thinkers to imagine a fusion of chemical fuels long before chemistry became a formal science.
A scientist with a peaceful soul
Although Haas served the military, he openly wrote that rockets should not be used for destruction. His manuscript includes a powerful line:
“My advice is for peace, not war.”
This single sentence sets him apart from most engineers of his age. He saw rockets as tools for exploration, not weapons — a mindset that modern space agencies promote today.
Why his work stayed hidden for centuries
Unlike famous later pioneers, Haas never published his ideas. He wrote them for internal military use, and after his death the manuscript disappeared into archives. Europe faced wars, political chaos, and scientific stagnation. His visionary drawings slept unnoticed while the world struggled to catch up.
Only in the early 20th century did scholars realize what they had found — a 16th-century blueprint for the future of space travel.
A legacy written in the stars
Today, Conrad Haas is recognized as a forgotten father of rocket science. His work shows that the dream of reaching space did not begin with modern engineers. It began with a curious inventor who imagined technology far beyond his time.
His manuscript proves one thing clearly:
Humanity looked at the stars long before it had the ability to reach them.
