question: How can it be, that we went from Roman times up until the late 1800's with the horse and chariot/carriage. And then in less that 100 years managed to reach the moon.
comment: Technology scales exponentially. Better technology begets better technology and has forever in all fields. We spend hundreds of thousands of years as nomad hunter gathers before we invented agriculture, then really quickly we developed cities. Basically the better technology you have the better technology you can make, its a positive feedback loop of progress:
passages: BULLET::::- Although Philo of Byzantium described the saqiya chain pump in the early 2nd century BC, the square-pallet chain pump was innovated in China during this century, mentioned first by the philosopher Wang Chong around AD 80. Wang Chong also accurately described the water cycle in meteorology, and argued against the mainstream 'radiating influence' theory for solar eclipses, the latter of which was accepted by many, including Zhang Heng.
  
  BULLET::::- The Chinese astronomer Liu Xin (d. AD 23) documented 1080 different stars, amongst other achievements.
  
  BULLET::::- End of 1st century – codex replaces the scroll.
   This new approach liberated scientific speculation from the dogmatic restraints of Aristotelian science, and paved the way for new approaches. Particularly within the field of theories of motion great advances were made, when such scholars as Jean Buridan, Nicole Oresme and the Oxford Calculators challenged the work of Aristotle. Buridan developed the theory of "impetus" as the cause of the motion of projectiles, which was an important step towards the modern concept of inertia. The works of these scholars anticipated the heliocentric worldview of Nicolaus Copernicus.
   Even after the chariot had become obsolete as a tool of war, there still was a need for technological innovations in pulling technologies as larger horses were needed to pull heavier loads of both supplies and weapons. The invention of the horse collar in China during the 5th century (Southern and Northern Dynasties) allowed horses to pull greater weight than they could when hitched to a vehicle by means of the ox yokes or breast collars used in earlier times. The horse collar arrived in Europe during the 9th century, and became widespread throughout Europe by the 12th century.
   BULLET::::- 4th century: Stirrups in Ancient China: The first dependable representation of a rider with paired stirrups was found in China in a Jin dynasty tomb of about AD 322. The stirrup appeared to be in widespread use across China by AD 477.
  
  BULLET::::- 4th–5th century: Paddle wheel boat (in "De rebus bellicis") in Roman Empire
  
  Section::::1st millennium AD.:5th century.
   but rather the domestication of the horse and widespread use of spoked wheels by c. 2000 BC. This led to the creation of the light, horse-drawn chariot, whose improved mobility proved important during this era. Spoke-wheeled chariot usage peaked around 1300 BC and then declined, ceasing to be militarily relevant by the 4th century BC.
  
  Cavalry developed once horses were bred to support the weight of a human. The horse extended the range and increased the speed of attacks.
  
  In addition to land based weaponry, warships, such as the trireme, were in use by the 7th century BC.
  
  Section::::History.:Post-classical history.
   During the latter part of the 18th century, there were numerous attempts to produce self-propelled steerable vehicles. Many remained in the form of models. Progress was dogged by many problems inherent to road vehicles in general, such as suitable power-plant giving steady rotative motion, suspension, braking, steering, adequate road surfaces, tyres, and vibration-resistant bodywork, among other issues. The extreme complexity of these issues can be said to have hampered progress over more than a hundred years, as much as hostile legislation.
  
  Section::::Early pioneers.:Cugnot's ""Fardier à vapeur"".
   The primary and most natural type of propulsion is the use of muscle power. The invention of the wheel allowed for the development of vehicles like Carts and Wagons that make more efficient use of muscle power, allowing larger loads to be transported. Vehicles drawn by humans and domesticated animals are not economically as important as they once were, but they still exist. Examples of human-powered vehicles are rickshaws and cycle rickshaws.
   Section::::Viewpoint of historians.:Mario Biagioli.
   Section::::Early modern history.:Indian Mysorean rockets.
   The history of transport is largely one of technological innovation. Advances in technology have allowed people to travel farther, explore more territory, and expand their influence over larger and larger areas. Even in ancient times, new tools such as foot coverings, skis, and snowshoes lengthened the distances that could be travelled. As new inventions and discoveries were applied to transport problems, travel time decreased while the ability to move more and larger loads increased. Innovation continues as transport researchers are working to find new ways to reduce costs and increase transport efficiency.
  
  Section::::Land.
  
  Section::::Land.:Road.
   Needham claims these devices "certainly embodied the principle of a rapid succession of images", but it is not apparent from any of the descriptions provided that there was anything other than a "procession" of painted figures or carvings or cast shadows seen actually moving through space. By contrast, the invention for which the name "zoetrope" was coined in the 19th century is, like the flip book, an animation device that creates an "illusion" of motion from a series of images showing successive phases of that motion, by rapidly presenting them to the viewer one after another in such a way that each abruptly replaces (or "seems" to abruptly replace) the previous one.
   Mule trains, for land travel, and barges, for river and canal travel, were the most common form of long-distance haulage, although wheeled horse-drawn vehicles were used for shorter journeys. In areas with good roads, regular carrier services were established between major towns. However, because medieval roads were generally so poor, carriages for human passengers were rare. When roads permitted, early carriages were developed from freight wagons. Carriage travel was made more comfortable in the late 14th century with the introduction of the "chariot branlant", which had strap suspension.
   Other Chinese discoveries and inventions from the Medieval period include block printing, movable type printing, phosphorescent paint, endless power chain drive and the clock escapement mechanism. The solid-fuel rocket was invented in China about 1150, nearly 200 years after the invention of gunpowder (which acted as the rocket's fuel). Decades before the West's age of exploration, the Chinese emperors of the Ming Dynasty also sent large fleets on maritime voyages, some reaching Africa.
  
  Section::::By period and geography.:Ancient.:Greek.
   Ultimately, there was greater investment in roads and the beginnings of a national network. Travel by road until the 19th century was done on foot or on horseback. Other than local carts, goods were transported by pack animal. There was little if any investment in the roads which were nothing more than rough tracks or, at best, the remains of Roman roads. Any carriages and carts were forced by rough surfaces to go at a horse's walking pace only. Elliott's invention ensured stability and carriage travel became safe with a much smoother ride, subject to road repair and maintenance.
   Wallace distinguishing between mind and body was asserting that natural selection shaped the form of man only until the appearance of mind; after then, it played no part. Mind formed modern man, meaning that result of mind, culture. Its appearance overthrew the laws of nature. Wallace used the term "grand revolution." Although Lubbock believed that Wallace had gone too far in that direction he did adopt a theory of evolution combined with the revolution of culture. Neither Wallace not Lubbock offered any explanation of how the revolution came about, or felt that they had to offer one. Revolution is an acceptance that in the continuous evolution of objects and events sharp and inexplicable disconformities do occur, as in geology. And so it is not surprising that in the 1874 Stockholm meeting of the International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology, in response to Ernst Hamy's denial of any "break" between Paleolithic and Neolithic based on material from dolmens near Paris "showing a continuity between the paleolithic and neolithic folks," Edouard Desor, geologist and archaeologist, replied: "that the introduction of domesticated animals was a complete revolution and enables us to separate the two epochs completely."
   The Korean kingdom of Joseon started producing gunpowder in 1374 and was producing cannons and rockets by 1377. However the multiple rocket launching carts known as the "Munjong hwacha" did not appear until 1451.
  
  Section::::Spread of rocket technology.:Europe.
  
  In Europe, Roger Bacon mentions gunpowder in his "Opus Majus" of 1267.
  
  However rockets do not feature in European warfare until the 1380 Battle of Chioggia.
  
  Konrad Kyeser described rockets in his famous military treatise Bellifortis around 1405.
   The last major event in Renaissance astronomy is the work of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). He was among the first generation of astronomers to be trained with the "Theoricae novae" and the "Epitome". Shortly before 1514 he began to revive Aristarchus's idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. He spent the rest of his life attempting a mathematical proof of heliocentrism. When "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" was finally published in 1543, Copernicus was on his deathbed. A comparison of his work with the "Almagest" shows that Copernicus was in many ways a Renaissance scientist rather than a revolutionary, because he followed Ptolemy's methods and even his order of presentation. In astronomy, the Renaissance of science can be said to have ended with the works of Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) and Galileo Galilei (1564–1642).
   Larger numbers of tourists began their tours after the Peace of Münster in 1648. According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", the first recorded use of the term (perhaps its introduction to English) was by Richard Lassels (c. 1603–1668), an expatriate Roman Catholic priest, in his book "The Voyage of Italy", which was published posthumously in Paris in 1670 and then in London. Lassels's introduction listed four areas in which travel furnished "an accomplished, consummate Traveller": the intellectual, the social, the ethical (by the opportunity of drawing moral instruction from all the traveller saw), and the political.
   European technical advancements from the 12th to 14th centuries were either built on long-established techniques in medieval Europe, originating from Roman and Byzantine antecedents, or adapted from cross-cultural exchanges through trading networks with the Islamic world, China, and India. Often, the revolutionary aspect lay not in the act of invention itself, but in its technological refinement and application to political and economic power. Though gunpowder along with other weapons had been started by Chinese, it was the Europeans who developed and perfected its military potential, precipitating European expansion and eventual imperialism in the Modern Era.
   By the mid 18th century, the Grand Tour had become a regular feature of aristocratic education in Central Europe, as well, although it was restricted to the higher nobility. The tradition declined as enthusiasm for neo-classical culture waned, and with the advent of accessible rail and steamship travel—an era in which Thomas Cook made the "Cook's Tour" of early mass tourism a byword.
  
  "The New York Times" in 2008 described the Grand Tour in this way:
   Even after the chariot had become obsolete as a tool of war, there still was a need for technological innovations in pulling technologies; horses were needed to pull heavy loads of supplies and weapons. The invention of the horse collar in China during the 5th century AD (Southern and Northern Dynasties) allowed horses to pull greater weight than they could when hitched to a vehicle with the ox yokes or breast collars used in earlier times. The horse collar arrived in Europe during the 9th century, and became widespread by the 12th century.
  
  Section::::Technological innovations.:Riding equipment.
   Section::::Early pioneers.:Early steam carriage services.
  
  More commercially successful for a time than Trevithick's carriage were the steam carriage services operated in England in the 1830s, principally by Walter Hancock and associates of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, among others and in Scotland by John Scott Russell. However, the heavy road tolls imposed by the Turnpike Acts discouraged steam road vehicles and for a short time allowed the continued monopoly of horse traction until railway trunk routes became established in the 1840s and '50s.
   This article includes the advances in technology and the development of several engineering arts in historic times before the Middle Ages, which began after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, the death of Justinian I in the 6th century, the coming of Islam in the 7th century, or the rise of Charlemagne in the 8th century. For technologies developed in medieval societies, see Medieval technology and Inventions in medieval Islam.
   Section::::Power sources.:Steam-powered wheeled vehicles.
  
  Section::::Power sources.:Steam-powered wheeled vehicles.:17th and 18th centuries.
  
  Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a Jesuit mission in China, built a steam-powered vehicle around 1672 as a toy for the Chinese Emperor. It was small-scale and could not carry a driver but it was, quite possibly, the first working steam-powered vehicle ('auto-mobile').
   Section::::History.
  
  While there is some anthropological evidence that horses were ridden before they were driven, the most unequivocal evidence of domestication and use of the horse as a driving animal are the Sintashta chariot burials in the southern Urals, circa 2000 BC. However, shortly thereafter, the expansion of the domestic horse throughout Europe was little short of explosive. In the space of possibly 500 years, there is evidence of horse-drawn chariots in Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. By another 500 years, the horse-drawn chariot had spread to China.
  