In 1232 the Chinese used the first known gunpowder in the seige of Kai-Fun-Fu. Little did they know what a big impact their weapons would have on the travel to the stars. Rockets indeed were first used as weapons and subsequently improved until we see the rocket we know today. In 1650 Kasimir Simienowicz theorized that adding fins and sequentially arranging and firing rockets could improve their accuracy. He was correct. In 1729 Haidar Ali, rebelling against the British East India Company, formed a force of rockets mounted on bamboo canes and During the Napoleonic Wars, British forces themselves used the rockets on seaborne assaults and in major cities in Europe such as Boulogne, Copenhagen and Danzig. Continually with the use of the rocket as a military weapon came improvements, not only in rocket design but in the launch process itself. These improvements helped pave the way for space travel.