2025 WSC Weekly29期：用火箭送快递可行吗？

WSC Weekly

2025世界学者杯

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2025年度主题：重燃未来

Reigniting the Future

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助力小学者准备世界学者杯！

让我们怀着

永恒的学术精神与信念

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上期回顾&Quiz答案揭晓

在2025年世界学者杯第28期WSC Weekly栏目中，我们与小学者一起了解了音游从街机到VR的演变历程及其对身心健康的积极影响。在上期的趣味Quiz中，你是否找到了正确答案？现在就让我们一起来揭晓吧！

用游戏机来蹦迪的音游是如何风靡全球的？

The brief history of rhythm games

第28期Quiz答案揭晓：

Which of the following statements about the development of rhythm games is inaccurate?

关于节奏游戏的发展，以下哪项陈述不准确？

A. Dance Aerobics (1987) for the NES is often seen as an early precursor to the rhythm game genre. 任天堂娱乐系统（NES）平台的《有氧健身操》（1987）常被视为音游类型的早期先驱。

B. PaRappa the Rapper (1996) turned arcade cabinets into dance stages where crowds often gathered. 《啪啦啪啦啪》（1996）将街机柜变成了舞池舞台，常吸引人群聚集。

C. Rock Band (2007) expanded the rhythm game experience to include drums, vocals, and bass guitar alongside lead guitar. 《摇滚乐队》（2007）将节奏游戏体验扩展至鼓、人声、贝斯与主音吉他。

D. Just Dance (2009) became a global sensation by combining motion capture with popular music tracks. 《舞力全开》（2009）通过结合动作捕捉技术与流行音乐曲目引发全球热潮。

E. Beat Saber (2018) combined VR immersion with rhythm gameplay, using sabers to slash beats in time with music. 《节奏光剑》（2018）融合VR沉浸体验与节奏玩法，玩家需挥舞光剑配合音乐节奏劈砍节拍。

正确答案：B

Key: B

2025年第29期

Weekly Intro

火箭送信是天才构想还是疯狂实验？它为何在辉煌后悄然退场？

本期Weekly将回顾火箭邮件的百年兴衰，探寻其从科学狂想到历史注脚的传奇历程，一起来看看吧！

2025 No.29

用火箭送快递可行吗？

The dream of rocket mail

火箭邮的起源构想

火箭邮（Rocket Mail）这一概念，即通过火箭等抛射物运送信件和包裹，最早可追溯到两个多世纪前。德国诗人兼记者海因里希·冯·克莱斯特（Heinrich von Kleist）通常被认为是这一设想的最早提出者。1810年，他建议将炮弹内填充信件并向数十英里外的软地面发射，他计算出这种方式可以在一天内把信从柏林送达布雷斯劳，比任何骑马信使都快得多。虽然当时仅是理论设想，但克莱斯特的构想在实用火箭技术出现前就激发了人们的想象。进入19世纪末，火箭邮从幻想逐渐走向实验。1870年，法国人J. D. Schneiter在普法战争期间申请了火箭邮的首项专利。尽管战争结束使其发明未能付诸实践，但他的努力标志着一个转变：火箭开始不仅被视为武器，也被视为通信工具。

The concept of rocket mail—sending letters and parcels via projectile—dates back over two centuries.The German poet and journalist Heinrich von Kleist is often credited with the first proposal.In 1810, he suggested filling artillery shells with letters and firing them toward soft ground many miles away. He calculated that such a system could send a letter from Berlin to Breslau in a single day, far faster than any courier. While purely theoretical, von Kleist’s idea captured imaginations long before practical rocketry existed.By the late 19th century, the notion began moving from fantasy to experimentation. In 1870, J. D. Schneiter of France filed what is believed to be the first patent for rocket mail during the Franco-Prussian War.Although the war ended before his invention could be tested, Schneiter’s effort marked a shift: rockets were being considered not only as weapons, but also as tools of communication.

偏远岛屿的实践

火箭邮的首次实际测试并非发生在欧洲，而是在南太平洋的偏远地区。汤加的火山岛纽阿福欧（Niuafoʻou）因礁石和风浪恶劣而邮件难以送达。自1882年起，路过的船只会将防水罐装信件扔入海中，由岛民游泳取回，因此该岛获得了“铁罐岛（Tin Can Island）”的别称。到了20世纪初，这种投罐方式开始配合粗糙的火箭邮件试验，即将信件系在康格里夫火箭上发射。然而这些火箭极不可靠——常常爆炸、偏航或把信件扔进海水中。直到1983年岛上建了机场前，投罐法始终比火箭邮更为可靠。

Rocket mail’s first real tests came not in Europe, but in the remote South Pacific. On the volcanic island of Niuafoʻou in Tonga, delivering mail was notoriously difficult due to reefs and rough seas. Beginning in 1882, passing ships dropped watertight tins of letters into the water for swimmers to collect—a system that earned the island the nickname “Tin Can Island.”Toward the turn of the 20th century, these tin can deliveries were supplemented by crude experiments attaching mail to Congreve rockets.While imaginative, the rockets were wildly unreliable—often exploding, veering off-course, or dunking letters into saltwater. Ultimately, tin cans proved more dependable than rockets until the island finally received an airfield in 1983.

现代火箭技术的推动

随着20世纪20年代现代火箭技术的发展，火箭邮赢得了更严肃的拥护者。被称为航天之父之一的物理学家赫尔曼·奥伯特（Hermann Oberth）在1928年计算出火箭可携带达44磅邮件、飞行1200英里，有望30分钟横渡大西洋。他的设想激励了年轻的韦尔纳·冯·布劳恩（Wernher von Braun），后者后来主导了德国V-2火箭项目。同时，奥地利工程师弗里德里希·施米德尔（Friedrich Schmiedl）则采取了更实用的做法：1931年，他在阿尔卑斯山区成功通过火箭将100多封信件用降落伞送达邻近村庄，虽然不久后遭到政府禁止，但他被视为火箭邮的真正先驱之一。德国还有莱因霍尔德·蒂林（Reinhold Tiling），他展示了可运送明信片的火箭飞机，但不幸在一次爆炸中丧生；还有格哈德·祖克（Gerhard Zucker），其多次失败（甚至被怀疑为骗局）也使他声名狼藉。在印度，斯蒂芬·史密斯（Stephen Smith）在1930–40年代进行了270多次火箭飞行试验，运送信件、包裹，甚至小动物，被认为是史上最勤奋的火箭邮实验者。

With the rise of modern rocketry in the 1920s, rocket mail gained serious advocates.Physicist Hermann Oberth, one of the fathers of spaceflight, calculated in 1928 that rockets could carry up to 44 pounds of mail over 1,200 miles, potentially crossing the Atlantic in just 30 minutes. His ideas inspired others, including a young Wernher von Braun, who later led Germany’s V-2 rocket program. Meanwhile, Austrian engineer Friedrich Schmiedl took a practical approach. In 1931, he launched rockets carrying more than 100 letters between Alpine villages, successfully delivering them with parachutes. Though later banned by Austrian authorities, Schmiedl became one of the earliest true pioneers of rocket mail. Germany also saw figures like Reinhold Tiling, who demonstrated rocket planes carrying postcards before his untimely death in an explosion, and Gerhard Zucker, whose repeated failures (and suspected scams) made him notorious. In India, Stephen Smith conducted more than 270 experimental flights, sending letters, packages, and even livestock by rocket in the 1930s and 40s. His achievements earned him recognition as perhaps the most prolific rocket mail experimenter in history.

集邮爱好者的推动

20世纪30年代的火箭邮实验很大程度上也受到集邮爱好者（philatelists）的推动。他们愿意为搭载在火箭上的信封支付高价，作为收藏纪念。这些“纪念飞行”常常资助了试验，但也吸引了一些投机者。例如荷兰爱好者卡雷尔·罗伯蒂（Karel Roberti）仅用类似烟火的装置发射“火箭”，却将盖章信封高价出售，尽管屡屡失败。即便在美国，这类活动也多是表演性质：1936年，商人弗里多·凯斯勒（Frido Kessler）在纽约策划了几次火箭邮件发射，但火箭都失败了。同年，美国德州的退伍军人协会成员将火箭发射越过格兰德河送达墨西哥，这被视为首次国际火箭邮寄，但其更像是一次募捐秀而非邮政革命。

Rocket mail in the 1930s was fueled as much by collectors as by science.Philatelists—stamp collectors—paid for covers (letters and envelopes) carried aboard rockets, treating them as rare collectibles. These souvenir flights often funded experiments, but they also attracted opportunists.Some, like Dutch enthusiast Karel Roberti, used little more than fireworks to launch “rocket mail,” selling colorful stamped covers at high prices despite repeated failures. Even in the United States, attempts were often more theatrical than practical. In 1936, businessman Frido Kessler staged rocket mail launches in New York, though the rockets sputtered and crashed. That same year, American Legion members in Texas launched rockets across the Rio Grande into Mexico, achieving what is considered the first international rocket mail delivery—though more as a fundraising stunt than a postal revolution.

军事实力的展示

到20世纪中期，真正的火箭技术早已远超这些民间尝试。1959年，美国邮政局与海军合作，将数千封信装入一枚“雷神一号”巡航导弹，从潜艇发射，在22分钟内飞行700英里抵达佛罗里达。官员们对此赞不绝口，邮政总长阿瑟·萨默菲尔德（Arthur Summerfield）宣称“在人类登上月球之前，邮件将通过导弹在数小时内送达。”但事实上，这次测试更多是冷战时期对军力展示的一部分，而非实际邮政技术的演进。火箭邮最终也未被纳入官方邮政系统。

By the mid-20th century, real rockets far outpaced amateur efforts.In 1959, the U.S. Postal Service partnered with the Navy to load thousands of letters into a Regulus I cruise missile, which was launched from a submarine and delivered 700 miles away in Florida in just 22 minutes.Officials hailed it as a glimpse of the future: Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield declared that “before man reaches the moon, mail will be delivered within hours” by guided missile. In reality, the test was more a Cold War demonstration of military capability than a genuine postal experiment, and rocket mail never became a state program.

梦想的终结与遗产

虽然令人神往，但是火箭邮始终无法克服其缺陷：成本高、危险大、且不如飞机可靠。早在1930年代，航空邮件就已提供快速而稳定的全球服务。二战之后，火箭更多地与毁灭而非通信相关。随着技术进步，人们通过飞机甚至数字通信解决了快递需求，无需依靠火箭。如今，在电子邮件和快递服务的时代，即时通信不再需要火箭支撑。尽管如此，火箭邮仍是通信与航天史上一段迷人的脚注。它融合了科幻、怪才、集邮爱好和冷战表演。至今仍有爱好者珍藏火箭搭载的邮票，而火箭邮的故事也象征着人类的想象力和对于渴望缩短距离、加快联系的梦想，哪怕方式曾是如此“爆炸性”。

Despite its allure, rocket mail never overcame its flaws. Rockets were expensive, dangerous, and unreliable compared to aircraft.By the 1930s, airmail services already provided fast, reliable global delivery. After World War II, rockets were primarily associated with destruction, not communication. As technology advanced, rocket mail’s problems were solved instead by planes, and later by digital communication. Today, with email and express couriers, the dream of instant delivery no longer needs a rocket. Though rocket mail was never practical, it remains a fascinating footnote in the history of communication and rocketry. Its story blends science fiction, eccentric inventors, stamp collectors, and Cold War theater. Enthusiasts still treasure rocket-flown stamps as collectibles, and the idea of rocket mail continues to symbolize human imagination—our desire to shrink distances and connect faster, even if the methods are explosive.

Weekly关键词 Key Words►

rocket mail 火箭邮

所属话题

The Future Wasn’t Meant to Be

相关阅读

https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-02-the-history-of-rocket-mail-backlog.html

Weekly FUN Quiz

相信现在你已经知道了火箭邮如何从19世纪的狂想，经历20世纪的实验热潮与军事实验，最终在航空与数字时代落下帷幕了吧！那就快来参与本期Weekly FUN Quiz👇，告诉老师你的答案吧！

Quiz

Suppose an alien visiting the earth was hit by a nuclear cruise missile delivering mail. Where was the accident most likely to happen? 假设一位造访地球的外星人被一枚运送邮件的核巡航导弹击中。事故最可能发生在哪里？

A. US 美国

B. France 法国

C. Netherlands 荷兰

D. Germany 德国

E. Tonga 汤加

To WSC Scholars:

本期Weekly Quiz正确答案将在专栏下期推文中揭晓！欢迎小学者们关注服务号，进入“WSC Weekly”专栏，此栏目将会持续陪伴小学者们，分享更多WSC趣味学术知识！