Nikolai Ivanovich Tikhomirov (; birthname - Nikolai Viktorovich Slyotov; November 1859 - 28 April 1930) was a Russian Empire and Soviet chemical engineer, inventor, founder of the Gas Dynamics Laboratory, specialist in rocket technology and one of the inventors of the Katyusha, which he was awarded the Hero of Socialist Labor (1991, posthumously). A crater on the far side of the Moon is named after him.
Biography
Born in November 1859 in Moscow, to a noble family of a real state councilor. His birth name was Nikolai Viktorovich Slyotov. In the 1880s, he took a pseudonym for himself, the name of his childhood friend Nikolai, the son of the merchant Ivan Tikhomirov. Subsequently, the pseudonym became his official surname.
Early years
After graduating from the lyceum, he studied at the chemical department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Imperial Moscow University. After graduation, he worked in the technical laboratory of the Imperial Moscow University and at Kiev University in the laboratory of Professor , who gave popular lectures on the production of "nutritional and flavoring substances".
From the mid-1880s, he worked in various fields of industry, first as an assistant to the director of the Association of the Babkin Brothers Kupavinskaya cloth factory in the Bogorodsky Uyezd of Moscow Governorate. Based on the experience gained, he wrote a three-volume educational work. In 1886, the Moscow printing house of L. F. Snegirev printed the first volume of "Technology of woolen production in the VI parts with a separate large atlas of machines and apparatus", the 2nd volume "Finishing the cloth" and the 3rd volume "Artificial wool and wool carbonization. The Babkin brothers, having learned about this, regarded the publication of books as a direct threat to their production, fired their assistant and banned the publication of these books.
Tikhomirov left for Ukraine, where he worked first as an intern, and then as chief chemist and director of sugar distilleries of the two largest sugar beet and refining corporations of the Russian Empire - the Tereshchenko Brothers Partnership and the Brodsky Alexander Partnership. In 1893 he published the book "Analysis of sugary substances. A Practical Guide to the Chemical Investigation of Materials and Products of Beet Sugar Production” and “Reference Book and Guide to Beet Sugar Production”.In addition, he received patents for his own inventions: for new methods of sugar production; on marching mobile centers for the army; on a device that uses the heat of flue gases to heat and purify water with the associated destruction of smoke. Tikhomirov also invented filters with automatic washing of the filter material for sugar, distilleries, oil mills and other plants. The filters have been widely used at home and abroad.
Early rocket research
Since 1894, Tikhomirov has been working on the problem of creating rocket projectiles - "self-propelled mines of reactive action", until 1897 "conducted experiments with small models moving in water using the jet work of powder gases ...". Once, while conducting chemical experiments in the laboratory, he injured his right arm and left leg from an explosion, because of which "he was released from military service forever."
In 1909, Tikhomirov returned to Moscow to develop "numerous research and inventions accumulated over many years ... scientific and practical work." He made a schematic development and the necessary calculations of "self-propelled mines". Tikhomirov suggested using the reaction of gases during the combustion of flammable liquids or explosives in combination with an ejected air medium to propel a rocket. In 1912, he submitted his project to the Minister of the Navy, Admiral Aleksei Birilev for consideration. The project was reported to the emperor. Nicholas II personally came to the test, ordered the work to be continued and allocated the necessary funding. In November 1915, Tikhomirov applied for a patent to the Technical Affairs Committee of the Department of Industry of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which issued him a protective certificate No. 309 (without disclosure) for a type of "self-propelled mines for water and air."