The thermos flask didn't only go to picnics.
It changed the working man's lunch break; it provided airborne drinks for people on Zeppelins.
It went to the South Pole and to Central Africa, both to sustain the intrepid explorers, and to bring back hot and cold specimens.
And, it saved countless peoples' lives because it stopped their insulin from going bad.
But it was in the form behind me here; that the thermos flask probably made its greatest impact on the 20th century, and I use that word 'impact' advisedly.
It took that form, principally because of two men whose work was virtually ignored, and the third, who did his work in a way that nobody could ignore.
The first was a Russian called Chelkowski; and he literally thought everything out, and his work lay buried in Russian disinterest, until after his death.
The second was an American called Robert Goddard who did most of his best work on his aunt's farm in Massachusetts, and all he got for his pains was some rather lukewarm interest from American weather forecasters.
The third man was called Hermann Oberth, and people noticed what he did, because in 1944, what he was trying to do was destroy London.
His particular version of the thermos flask became known as 'Vengeance Weapon 2,' and before the war was over, it had killed thousands of allied troops and civilians.
You see, all three men had understood that certain gases ignite, and that the thermos flask permits you to store vast quantities of those gases safely, in the frozen liquid form, until you want to ignite them; at which point, you take the top off the flask, the gases evaporate, you apply a light, and boom.
Now, two gases do that better than any other; and it was Oberth's assistant who put them together most efficiently.
His name was Wernher von Braun, and the two gases that he released from his particular version of the thermos flask; the one lying on its side behind me now, were hydrogen and oxygen.
If you release those two gases into a confined space with the hole at the other end of it, and mix them as you do so, and then, set light to them, you get that.
Destination: the Moon or Moscow; the planets or Peking.
