© by Mark Ollig
At a young age, Robert’s interest in science was encouraged by his parents, who provided him with resources to explore his curiosity, including a microscope, telescope, and a subscription to Scientific American magazine.
On Oct. 19, 1899, he daydreamed about space travel after reading published magazine installments of the H. G. Wells science fiction novel, “War of the Worlds.”
“I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars,” Robert recalled in 1927.
Robert was born Robert Hutchings Goddard Oct. 5, 1882, in Worcester, MA.
In 1907, while attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Goddard ignited a powder rocket in the basement of the physics building, producing a lot of smoke and much attention from the school’s teachers, who became interested in his rocket.
In 1912, at Princeton University in New Jersey, Goddard became an instructor in the physics department, where he continued his research on rocketry.
In 1914, Goddard obtained his first two US patents, numbered 1,102,653 and 1,103,503, respectively, for inventing a liquid-fuel rocket and a multistage step rocket.
“A rocket apparatus having, in combination, a combustion chamber, a casing containing a supply of combustible material, and means for successively-feeding portions of said material to said combustion chamber,” Goddard described in his second patent.
As an assistant physics professor at Clark University in Worcester, MA, in 1915, Goddard demonstrated that rocket engines could generate thrust in a vacuum, thereby establishing their space flight capability.
On March 29, 1919, the Boston Globe reported on Dr. Goddard’s new rocket, invented with US War Department assistance, titled “Worcester Man Invents Deadly War Rocket.”
The report said the rocket “would have been used [in WWI], but for the Armistice [cessation of war hostilities], and “required no cannon to start it on its flight.”
In early 1926, Goddard prepared to launch the first liquid-fueled propelled rocket from the Asa Ward Farm in Auburn, MA, owned by his relative, Effie Ward.
The 10-foot tall rocket, later called “Nell,” contained a 2-foot-long motor engine powered by a mixture of liquid oxygen in one chamber and gasoline in another.
In the early afternoon of March 16, 1926, Goddard, his wife, Esther, Henry Sachs, and Percy Roope, an assistant professor from Clark University, were present during the historic rocket launch.
The rocket’s fuel chamber was ignited by Sachs using a blowtorch fastened to the end of a pipe, and a loud “pop,” followed by a “roar,” was heard during liftoff.
The combined oxidizer and fuel chemical mixture ignited and burned, providing thrust to propel the rocket into the sky.
The first liquid-propelled rocket flight reached an estimated speed of 59.65 mph and landed in the field, where it had run out of fuel.
On March 16, 1926, Goddard wrote the following, “March 16. Went to Auburn with Mr. Sachs in the morning. Esther and Mr. Roope came out at 1 p.m. Tried rocket at 2:30 p.m. It rose 41 ft, and went 184 ft, in 2.5 sec, after the lower half of the nozzle burned off. Brought materials to lab. Read Mechanics, Physics of Air, and wrote up experiment in evening.”
Yes, this was a short rocket flight; however, it was historically comparable with the Wright Brothers’ first airplane flight in 1903, which lasted 12 seconds and traveled 120 feet.
The next day, he wrote, “March 17. The first flight with a rocket using liquid propellants was made yesterday at Aunt Effie’s farm in Auburn. Even though the release was pulled, the rocket did not rise at first, but the flame came out, and there was a steady roar.”
Goddard continued, “After a number of seconds, it rose slowly, until it cleared the frame, and then at express train speed, curving over to the left, and striking the ice and snow, still going at a rapid rate.”
With limited space in Auburn for Goddard’s rocket experiments, he moved his research facilities to Roswell, NM.
His tests resulted in the first gyro-controlled rocket guidance system and variable thrust, liquid-propellant rockets.
In the mid-1930s, Goddard’s rockets reached speeds exceeding 741 mph and ascended almost two miles in the sky.
Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard, an engineer, physicist, inventor, and professor whose research on rockets significantly contributed to modern space exploration, passed away Aug. 10, 1945, at 62.
I learned Goddard was often ridiculed for recommending rockets for space travel to the moon.
On July 16, 1969, astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin brought a miniature book titled “Robert Hutchings Goddard – Father of the Space Age,” during Apollo 11’s rocket flight to the moon.
Dr. Robert H. Goddard had 214 patents in rocketry, and is today considered the father of modern rocket propulsion.
In Auburn, MA, within the Pakachoag Golf Course along the ninth fairway, is a rectangular granite obelisk containing the words “Site of Launching of World’s First Liquid Propellant Rocket by Dr. Robert H. Goddard, March 16, 1926.”
Ex Libris Immersive Museum of History created an excellent 3D recreation video of Goddard’s liquid-fueled rocket’s March 16, 1926 launch at https://bit.ly/3nBqQ61.
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| Robert H. Goddard with his first liquid-fueled rocket. (NASA Goddard Space Center) |