Pedro Eleodoro Paulet Mostajo (2 July 1874 or 4 July 1875 – 30 January 1945) was a Peruvian diplomat and engineer. Some early rocket experts described him as a pioneer in aeronautics, saying that he was the first person to build a liquid-propellant rocket engine and modern rocket propulsion system, but his experiments were never independently verified.

Pedro Eleodoro Paulet Mostajo was born on 2 July 1874, to the well-esteemed family of Pedro Paulet and Antonia Mostajo y Quiroz in Tiabaya, Arequipa, Peru; his father died three years later.^[1][2] As a child, Paulet was fascinated with flight and combustion.^[3][4] With the steam locomotives traveling through Arequipa, Paulet would try to learn how the large machines were propelled as a child.^[3] He was sent to the San Vicente de Paul School by his mother, with the school being founded by the Lazarist French priest Hippolyte Duhamel.^[2] After Duhamel gifted Paulet the 1865 French novel From the Earth to the Moon, an inspired Paulet would reportedly launch homemade rockets as a youth.^[4] His family reported that Paulet would make rockets by using leftover gunpowder from festivals, filling reeds coated with wax from his family's candles with the gunpowder and then tying it together with hemp string.^[3] Sometimes he would tie the rockets to stones or pieces of metal to gauge their strength or have the rockets travel with live animals placed inside, observing the effects rocket travel had on them.^[3][5][6] Despite being scolded by his family due to bothering his neighborhood, Paulet would instead go to open fields where he would experiment on his own.^[3]

By the age of fifteen, Paulet would begin to work with local pyrotechnicians, working with them to larger rockets with longer burn times.^[3] He enrolled at the National University of Saint Augustine when he was seventeen, founding the Patriotic Society and the Artistic Center.^[7] Paulet would show interest in the arts, being recognized as a skilled sculptor and painter, winning awards for his work.^[7] He would and Paulet would graduate with a Bachelor of Science and Arts.^[7] In late 1893, Paulet's mother would die.^[7] Despite his interests in the arts, Paulet would continue to be fixated on the power of rockets and how they could be used for transportation.^[7]

President Remigio Morales Bermúdez, who was personally impressed by the intellect of Paulet, provided a scholarship to him in 1894 to begin studies for a degree in engineering and architecture at the University of Paris.^[7] In 1895, Paulet reportedly began to experiment with his rocket engine, using Panclastite for propulsion, as recommended by Marcellin Berthelot.^[8][9] When experimenting with combustible chemicals, Paulet reported he had to do so in secret due to prohibitions enforced by the police due to anarchist attacks in Paris.^[4] In one incident, he ruptured the eardrum in his left ear due to an explosion and was temporarily arrested upon suspicions of being an anarchist, though Berthelot was able to explain that Paulet was a student.^[9] After explosive experiments were prohibited in university laboratories, Paulet was forced to perform experiments in the outskirts of Paris, seeking to find a cheaper and safer alternatives for fueling rockets.^[9] In 1897, he became a member of the Société astronomique de France and reportedly began to experiment with the "Girándula Motriz", or "Power Gyro".^[4][9] The same year, he reportedly made a more stable rocket engine fueled by nitrogen peroxide and gasoline.^[9] Due to the use of an oxidizing agent, the engine would have had the ability to function in the vacuum environment of outer space where oxygen is not present for combustion.^[9]

Due to his fluency in English, French, German and Spanish, he served as a correspondent for various newspapers, including Le Figaro and La Petite République.^[7] With these funds, Paulet was able to continue his studies and to travel to Northern Africa, the Middle East, Russia and the United States in search of ideas on rocketry.^[7] In 1898, Paulet began his studies of industrial engineering at the Institute of Applied Chemistry at the University of Paris.^[10][7][11] While attending the university, he would study under Charles Friedel, Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, exchanging ideas with them on the best methods to provide rocket propulsion.^[12][7] Due to funding issues, loss of laboratory access and concerns with neighbors, Paulet ceased his experiments.^[8][7]

During the Exposition Universelle in 1900, Paulet would serve as the Deputy Commissioner for the Peruvian delegation, designing the pavilion used at the exposition.^[4][13] He would become a member of the Société chimique de France and be bestowed the title of Officier de l'Instruction Publique of the Ordre des Palmes académiques by France the same year.^[4][1] The Peruvian government would also commission to create a plan to bring wireless telegraphy to Peruvian Amazonia in 1900, with his recommendations being utilized during the project.^[1] In 1901, he would graduate with High Distinction in industrial engineering from the University of Paris.^[1]

Paulet's work was accepted by some prominent experts in rocketry, but it was not independently verified.^[33] Russian aviation writer^[34] Aleksander B. Sherschevsky supported Paulet, saying "The advent of the space age became a reality with the development of the propulsion engine and spacecraft designed and built by the Peruvian Pedro Paulet between 1899 and 1903."^[22][35] Max Valier stated that Paulet's rocket engine had "amazing power" and that "the work of the Peruvian Paulet is most important for present projects leading to rocket ships, for it proved for the first time, in contrast to powder rockets burning only a few seconds, that by using liquid propellants, the construction of a rocket motor functioning for periods of hours would be feasible."^[36] Some of the principal founders of NASA recognized Paulet as an inspiration according to BBC News.^[37] In 1965, Hermann Oberth would describe Paulet as a pioneer in rocketry.^[38] Frederick I. Ordway III and Wernher von Braun studied the veracity of Paulet's work during the 1960s.^[10] Von Braun wrote that Paulet "is reputed to have experimented with a small, 5-pound rocket motor between 1895 and 1897", though von Braun noted that Paulet "would probably have gone unnoticed" without Scherschevsky's support.^[8]

James H. Wyld would state that "the validity of his claim may be rather doubtful, but it is interesting, nevertheless, ... Paulet's device appears to have been the earliest example of a so-called bipropellant rocket motor ... His use of nitrogen peroxide as oxidizer also foreshadowed certain modern propellants such as nitric acid, and the set-up of his test stand was quite similar to types used in later years."^[33] German science writer Willy Ley was one of the first people to express skepticism of Paulet and stated that "The doubts are obviously correct" in Grundriss einer Geschichte der Rakete, strongly criticizing Scherschevsky, calling him "lazy by nature" and "in favor of the Soviet government", stating that he "uncritically put hearsay into some of his articles, and into his one and only book."^[36] Liquid propellant chemist John D. Clark also raised doubts about Paulet's nineteenth century experiments.^[39]

El Comercio published several artist's interpretations^[40] of the Paulet's designs on 10 March 1965, in the article A Peruvian Engineer is the World Forerunner of Jet Propulsion Aircraft.^[41] Another article by El Comercio on 12 December cited Manuel del Castillo, president of the Organismo Nacional de Investigacions Espaciales, said to prove Paulet's work, citing Wyld June 1947 article, while admitting Wyld was simply translating A. B. Scherschevsky's Die Rakete für Fahrt und Flug.^[40] Noting that Paulet did not publish an account of his work until 1927 in the Lima newspaper, Wyld reiterated that "the validity of his [Paulet] claim is rather doubtful."^[40]

A statue of Paulet is present in his home district of Tiabaya and in the Parque Domodossola of the Malecón de Miraflores.^[4][1] In 1995, the Peruvian Air Force constructs a mausoleum for Paulet at the Cementerio Presbítero Matías Maestro.^[1] Paulet's Avión Torpedo was featured in a Google Doodle to commemorate the birthday of Pedro Paulet in 2011.^[42] In Peru, the National Commission for Aerospace Research and Development launched a series of rockets bearing Paulet's name.^[43] Beginning in 2016, he was prominently featured on the 100 soles banknote of the Peruvian Nuevo Sol.^[5]

•  France
  • Officier de l'Instruction Publique of the Ordre des Palmes académiques^[1]
• Trujillo
  • Gold Medal for his collaboration with constructing the Freedom Monument^[1]

• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
• Robert H. Goddard
• Spacecraft propulsion