Wan Hu (萬戶 or 萬虎) is a legendary Chinese official described in modern sources as the world's first "astronaut" by having been lifted by rockets into outer space. The crater Wan-Hoo on the far side of the Moon is named after him.[1]
According to some Chinese sources, "Wan Hu" (萬戶) was a title granted to him by the early Ming dynasty, and his real name was Tao Chengdao (陶成道). As a Ming official he was particularly obsessed with technological innovations, particularly those associated with rockets.[2][3] He is said to have died in 1390.[4]
The story concerns an imperial Chinese official, referred to as Wan Hu. In order to realize his space dream, he sat on a chair with 47 rockets tied to it, holding a kite in each of his hands, and flying into the sky. But the rockets then exploded, which resulted in the ultimate failure.[5] There are also variations of this story.
A precursor of the story of Wan Hu appeared in an article by John Elfreth Watkins, published in the 2 October 1909 issue of Scientific American, which used the name Wang Tu instead of Wan Hu:
"Tradition asserts that the first to sacrifice himself to the problem of flying was Wang Tu, a Chinese mandarin of about 2,000 years B.C. Who, having had constructed a pair of large, parallel and horizontal kites, seated himself in a chair fixed between them while forty-seven attendants each with a candle ignited forty-seven rockets placed beneath the apparatus. But the rocket under the chair exploded, burning the mandarin and so angered the Emperor that he ordered a severe paddling for Wang."[6]
The possibly farcical text proceeds to describe several other fictional stories of ancient aviators.[7] A date of 2000 BCE pre-dates the emergence of writing in China by three or four centuries and pre-dates the invention of gunpowder-based rockets in China by about 3,000 years.[8]
The legend of "Wan Hu" was widely disseminated by an unreferenced account in Rockets and Jets by American author Herbert S. Zim in 1945.[9] Another book from the same year, by George Edward Pendray, describes it as an "oft repeated tale of those early days."[10]
Early in the sixteenth century, Wan decided to take advantage of China's advanced rocket and fireworks technology to launch himself into outer space. He supposedly had a chair built with forty-seven rockets attached. On the day of lift-off, Wan, splendidly attired, climbed into his rocket chair and forty seven servants lit the fuses and then hastily ran for cover. There was a huge explosion. When the smoke cleared, Wan and the chair were gone, and was said never to have been seen again.
While according to Mark Williamson most authorities consider the story apocryphal,[11] some Chinese scholars believe, after some research and analysis, that: foreigners from several different countries in the west, were unlikely to fabricate a story about ancient Chinese official flying into the sky out of thin air; they may be based on the stories of European missionaries who arrived in China since the late Ming dynasty, and then passed it on by word of mouth. Or, these European and American scholars may also have indirectly relied on records in an ancient Chinese document that has been lost to tell the story of this event in their books.[12]