The craft was to contain three stages, of which only the uppermost, containing the crew, would ultimately be propelled to orbit around Earth.
From an illustration and description in the 14th century Chinese Huolongjing of Jiao Yu is the oldest known multistage rocket; this was the 'fire-dragon issuing from the water' (火龙出水, huo long chu shui), used mostly by the Chinese navy.
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The trio of rocket engines used in the first stage of the American Atlas I and Atlas II launch vehicles, arranged in a "row", used parallel staging in a similar way: the outer pair of engines existed as a jettisonable pair which would, after they shut down, drop away with the lowermost outer "skirt" structure of the booster, leaving the central "sustainer" engine to complete the first stage's engine burn towards apogee or orbit.
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Conrad Haas (1509–1576) was a military engineer of the Holy Roman Empire, who is often cited as the first person to describe a multistage rocket in writing, although some historians attribute that distinction to Jiao Yu in 14th Century China.
As a Resource Analyst at NASA's Comptroller's Office, Richard C. Cook was responsible for assessing the budgetary implications of the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), External Tank, and Centaur Upper Stage of the Space Shuttle program.