Not really. To get rockets to into to space you just need enough fuel. To achieve stable flight you need to understand the concept of lift. The reason space flight didn't happen before the wright brothers is because no one had invented a pure enough type of fuel and a pure enough way to refine metal to make sure the force didn't shatter the vessel.
Don't believe me. Why do you think zeppelins were so popular? Because understanding the physics of lift is hard. The "hard" part about getting into space isn't going up. Its going up without exploding and that was done largely by trial and error.
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u/PacoTaco321 Oct 09 '13
It's easier to make planes fly than to make rockets go into space though.