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Goddard: Rocket Pioneer

Click to see original imageBy N. LA VEBL $fl’lPlI IMI! NWIFFN “Thedreamofyesterdayiatlaehopeof today and the reality of tomorrow.” When in 150 Congress ordered a gold medal strut! in recomltim of Dr. Robert ll. Goddard’s pioneering research in rocketry, those words wu-e liucrlbed on one side. They were spoken by Goddard himself just after the tum of the century as valedictorian at South HU! School in Worcester. that – and they charac lerisedhis life ssa acimtist and inventor. He is bdng honored this week in connection wtlh (ll the mh anniversary of the “spsoe age” advuit with the orbit ofRussla’s Sputnik earth satellite Oct. 4. lilartdrlithelllkhannlveraaryof Goddard’s birth Oct 5. ll! in Worcuter. The Smithsonian lnstitutlon’s National Air and Space Museum is marking the space age milestone with an elght month exhibit. At the National Aeromutlcs and Space Administration! Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt. Md. (named in recognition of Dr. Goddard’a contribution), lectures. programs. films, and publications are focusing on the rocket scientist’s achievements. Called the lather of modern rocket propuldon, Goddard quietly and persistently pursued research and rocket building while a profusor of physics at Clark University at Worcester. His dream of spate travel took shape ass 17 -year- old hoy. He didn’t live to see that accomplished (he dled Aug. lll, 1915), but made great stride toward the goal His most powerful rocket travelled faster than the speed of sound and reached an altitude of almost two miles. Goddardwassicklyassboyandhsd tuberculosis in his early thirties. But he persisted and by lm bui.lt and tested successfully his first rocket, using liquid fuel. The flight of his primitive Invention March 16 of that year at Auburn, Mass. has been compsred with the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk as a feat epochsl in history. Yet his efforts made little impression on government officials. Only through mods subsidies of the Smithsonian Institution and the Daniel Guggenheim Foundation was he able to sustain his devoted research and testing. He worked for the US. Navy in both World Wars, but in neither was the military interested in his rocket blueprints. ltreanalnedforhispioneering rocketry principles to come to lile in the German V-1 missiles of War ll, iocludlng yroscoplc control, steering by meansofvanulnthejetstreamoftlie rocket motor, power – driven fuel pumps and other devices. Werner von Braun, one of the German scientists who came over to the Amer-icarisriearthecloseofWarlI, attributed the rocket principles “to your Dr. Goddard.” As early as 1914. Goddard had received twopaterlls-oneforarockettuing liquid fuel; the other for a two – or – three step rocket using solid fuel His mathnnatical theories of rocket propulsion were outlined in n Smithsonian publiution in lim. I-lis paper discussed the possibility of a rocket reaching the moon, which stirred a journalistic controversy mnceming its feasibility. Much ridicule came Goddard’s way and no doubt contributed to his avoidance of the public limelight through the years. Goddard was the first scientist who not only realised the potentialities of missles and space Bid! hat also com-ihisul directly to bringing them lo prsetlcsl reallaatlm with his rod: – building and tests. The dedicated labors of thia modst man went largely unrscognised in the Usuntiltliedawriofwhatlsnowcalled Rockets for defense and space exploration have became a multi – tilllon dollar industry in modern tlmsa, Claiming government lnhioguneota on Goddard’a various patnts in mckn developmera. the Guggenheim Foundation and the scientist’: widow. Esther C.Goddard.filedajolntclalrnlnlNl. Eventually, m June lm, the litigation was quietly concluded with an administrative award cf ll millltai. The aettlemeit gave the government the ”rlgbtsto1aeoverlIofGoddard’s patents whlch.” saltl a NASA statanmt, “cover haste invuatlms in the field of rockets. guided mlssilss and space esplorstlon.” Todayhiavlgatlonlnapacenoltalslrls idle fancy. No more do people helittle the lofty ideas nor the accomplishments of the man who envisioned space sxploratlnn One hundred years after his birth, the late Dr. Rohert H. Goddard finally ls receiving the acclaim and the place in history he earned.