Robert Hutchings Goddard

The American pioneer in rocketry Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882-1945) was one of the founders of the science of astronautics.

Robert Goddard was born on Oct. 5, 1882, in Worcester, Mass., the son of Nahum Danford Goddard, a businessman, and Fannie Hoyt Goddard. From his earliest youth Goddard suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis. Although he remained out of school for long periods, he kept up with his academic studies, and he read voluminously in Cassell's Popular Educator and science fiction.

In 1904 Goddard enrolled at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and received his degree in physics in 1908. He then entered the graduate school of Clark University, where he was granted a master's degree in 1910 and received his doctorate a year later.

Early Investigations in Rocketry

Goddard went to the Palmer Physical Laboratory of Princeton University as a research fellow in 1912. He proposed a research project he described as "the positive result of force on a material dielectric carrying a displacement current." In the course of his experimentation he developed a vacuum-tube oscillator that he subsequently patented in 1915, well before that of Lee De Forest.

While Goddard's days in the laboratory were given over to his research in radio, his nights were free to work upon the fundamentals of rocketry. Approaching the problem theoretically, he was able by 1913 to prove that a rocket of 200 pounds' initial mass could achieve escape velocity for a 1-pound mass if the propellant was of gun cotton at 50 percent efficiency or greater. He began patenting many of the rocket concepts that ultimately gave him a total of more than 200 patents in this particular field of technology. They were to cover many of the fundamentals in areas such as propellants, guidance and control, and structure. For example, his patent granted on July 7, 1914, clearly identifies the concept of multistaging of rockets, without which the landing of men on the moon or sending probes to Mars and Venus would not be possible.

When his health permitted, Goddard returned to teaching and research at Clark University. By this time he was wholly devoted to rocketry. He built a vacuum chamber in which he fired small, solid-propellant rockets to study the effects of different types of nozzles in such an environment. Having exhausted his own funds and not wishing to draw further on the resources of the university, he applied to the Smithsonian for a grant of $5,000, which he was awarded in 1917. With these funds he began the study of rocketry in earnest.

During World War I the U.S. Army Signal Corps provided $20,000 to the Smithsonian Institution for research in applied rocketry by Goddard. He moved to the Mt. Wilson Observatory in California and set up a workshop in which to experiment with solid-propellant rockets as weapons. There, with two assistants, Henry C. Parker and Clarence N. Hickman, he set to work on two projects.

Parker worked on a rocket with a single charge that could be launched from an open tube. This was the forebear of the World War II bazooka. Meanwhile, Hickman devoted his energies to one of Goddard's pet but more complex problems—a rocket propelled by the injection of successive solid charges into its motor. Parker's rocket proved to be successful, but Hickman's was simply unworkable. However, both rockets were demonstrated for military officials, but despite the success and the obvious enthusiasm of the military, the armistice 4 days after the demonstration canceled all Army interest in Goddard and his rockets. It was not revived for 26 years.

Liquid-propellant Rockets

In 1919 the Smithsonian Institution published Goddard's monograph "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes," which he had submitted earlier to that organization with a request for research funds. The newspapers, seeing a casual reference to the moon and the prospect of hitting it with a rocket loaded with flash powder, pushed Goddard into the headlines. Being a reticent man as well as a dedicated physicist, he recoiled from the unwanted publicity and resisted further attempts by publications to present the subject.

During the decades of the 1920s and 1930s Goddard's research was supported by erratic and unpredictable funding from Clark University, the U.S. Navy, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Carnegie Foundation. From static testing of small solid-propellant rockets Goddard graduated to liquid-propellant motors. His long experimentation with solid-propellant rockets had by the early 1920s convinced him that the efficiency of such motors was simply too low ever to be of use in space travel. Indeed, by the early 1920s he had daringly mentioned liquid hydrogen (not then obtainable) and liquid oxygen, that is, nuclear and ionic propulsion for rockets.

Goddard's first liquid-propellant rocket was launched in 1926 from a farm near Auburn, Mass. Present on the occasion as photographer was the young Mrs. Esther Goddard, whom Goddard had married in 1924. The rocket reached an altitude of 41 feet and a range of 184 feet and traveled the distance in only 2 1/2 seconds. It was not a statistically impressive performance, but neither was that at Kitty Hawk, N. C., on Dec. 17, 1903.

Work in New Mexico

Needing more room and a milder outdoor climate for his experiments, Goddard moved to New Mexico, near Roswell, in 1930. His Mescalero Ranch was only 100 miles from the White Sands Missile Range. There, in a well-equipped machine shop, Goddard and a small team of assistants began work on the design and fabrication of liquid-propellant rockets that were the direct forebears of the Saturn 5 and Titan 3C space boosters of the 1960s.

The first launching in New Mexico took place in 1930. In 1932 a rocket with a gyroscopic stabilizer was flown. In that same year Goddard returned to Clark University because of the economic depression. During the succeeding 2 years at Clark he continued his research as well as he could and received several patents that grew out of his work in New Mexico.

After Goddard returned to the ranch, the rockets grew larger and flew higher. On March 31, 1935, a 15-foot-tall model reached an altitude of 7,500 feet under gyroscopic control. Goddard's research continued here until 1942. During these years he turned his attention to a high-speed turbopump for delivering the propellants to the combustion chamber of the motor. It was a component that had long held up his development of a really efficient rocket.

Return East

On May 28, 1940, Goddard met with officers of the U.S. Army Air Corps and Navy in Washington, D.C., to brief them on his rockets and their potential as weapons. In 1941 he finally received a small contract from the Army Air Corps and Navy to develop a liquid-propellant jet-assist-takeoff rocket for aircraft. In July 1942 he left Roswell to continue his research at the Navy Engineering Experimental Station at Annapolis, Md. There his experiments met with technical success, but an attempt to demonstrate the motor on an actual aircraft ended in failure and the loss of the plane. As rockets of all types, especially the V-1 and V-2, began making the headlines, Goddard received offers of jobs from many companies; he accepted the invitation from Curtiss-Wright, where he worked until his death on Aug. 10, 1945.

Further Reading

The Papers of Robert H. Goddard was edited by Esther C. Goddard and G. Edward Pendray (3 vols., 1970). The only full-length biography of Goddard is Milton Lehman, This High Man: The Life of Robert H. Goddard (1963). Anne Perkins Dewey, Robert Goddard, Space Pioneer (1962), is a biography for younger readers. For general reading on rocketry during the period in which Goddard figured prominently see Willy Ley, Rockets Missiles, and Men in Space (1952; rev. ed. 1968); Beryl Williams and Samuel Epstein, The Rocket Pioneers on the Road to Space (1955); and Wernher von Braun and Frederick I. Ordway III, History of Rocketry and Space Travel (1966). Useful books on astronautics in general include Frederick I. Ordway, James P. Gardner, and Mitchell R. Sharpe, Basic Astronautics: An Introduction to Space Science, Engineering, and Medicine (1962), and Mitchell R. Sharpe, Living in Space: The Astronaut and His Environment (1969). □

Goddard, Robert Hutchings

(b. Worcester, Massachusetts, 5 October 1882; d. Baltimore, Maryland, 10 August 1945)

physics, rocket engineering.

After the advent of ballistic missiles and space exploration, Goddard became posthumously worldfamous as one of three scientific pioneers of rocketry. Like the Russian hero Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the German pioneer Hermann Oberth, Goddard worked out the theory of rocket propulsion independently; and then almost alone he designed, built, tested, and flew the first liquid-fuel rocket on 16 March 1926 near Auburn, Massachusetts. Although Goddard seriously studied experimental physics throughout his life, whether teaching or doing applied research for the government, he began to dream of astronautics in 1899 and rocket engineering remained his prime preoccupation.

Raised by his old-line Yankee family in middleclass suburbs of Boston, Goddard was a studious child whose academic development was thwarted by ill health. He graduated from Worcester’s South High School in 1904 and from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1908. Beginning graduate work in physics immediately at nearby Clark University, he obtained the M.A. and Ph.D. there in 1910 and 1911, respectively. Under the tutelage of A. G. Webster, Goddard studied radio devices, particularly the thermionic valve, electromagnetism in solids, and both solid and liquid propulsion for reaction engines. Following a year’s research at Princeton (1912–1913), he returned to Clark to teach and rose to a full professorship by 1919.

Having explored the mathematical practicality of rocketry since 1906 and the experimental workability of reaction engines in laboratory vacuum tests since 1912, Goddard began to accumulate ideas for probing beyond the earth’s stratosphere. His first two patents in 1914, for a liquid-fuel gun rocket and a multistage step rocket, led to some modest recognition and financial support from the Smithsonian Institution. During World War I, Goddard led research on tube-launched rockets that became the bazookas of World War II, and during the latter war he worked primarily on jet-assisted takeoff (jato) and variable-thrust rockets for aircraft, barely living to see evidence of the German V-2 rockets and to hear of Hiroshima.

The publication in 1919 of his seminal paper “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes” gave Goddard distorted publicity because he had suggested that jet propulsion could be used to attain escape velocity and that this theory could be proved by crashing a flash-powder missile on the moon. Sensitive to criticism of his moon-rocket idea, he worked quietly and steadily toward the perfection of his rocket technology and techniques. With an eye toward patentability of demonstrated systems and with the aid of no more than a handful of technicians, Goddard achieved a series of workable liquid-fuel flights starting in 1926. Through the patronage of Charles A. Lindbergh, the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, and the Carnegie and Smithsonian institutions, the Goddards and their small staff were able to move near Roswell, New Mexico. There, during most of the 1930’s, Goddard demonstrated, despite many failures in his systematic static and flight tests, progressively more sophisticated experimental boosters and payloads, reaching speeds of 700 miles per hour and altitudes above 8,000 feet in several test flights. Among Goddard’s successful innovations were fuel-injection systems, regenerative cooling of combustion chambers, gyroscopic stabilization and control, instrumented payloads and recovery systems, guidance vanes in the exhaust plume, gimbaled and clustered engines, and aluminum fuel and oxidizer pumps.

Although his list of firsts in rocketry was distinguished, Goddard was eventually surpassed by teams of rocket research and development experts elsewhere, particularly in Germany. By temperament and training Goddard was not a team worker, yet he laid the foundation from which team workers could launch men to the moon. Early in the 1960’s the National Aeronautics and Space Administration named its first new physical facility at Greenbelt, Maryland, after Goddard; and the government awarded his estate one million dollars for all rights to the collection of over 200 Goddard patents.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Goddard’s writings include “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes,” in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 71 , no. 2 (1919), and “Liquid-Propellant Rocket Development,” ibid., 95 , no. 3 (1936), both reprinted in Goddard’s Rockets (New York, 1946). See also Rocket Development: Liquid-Fuel Rocket Research, 1929–1941, Esther C. Goddard and G. Edward Pendray, eds. (New York, 1948); “An Autobiography,” in Astronauties, 4 (Apr. 1959), 24–27, 106–109; and The Papers of Robert H. Goddard, Esther C. Goddard and G. Edward Pendray, eds., 3 vols. (New York, 1970), based on a voluminous MSS collection at Robert H. Goddard Memorial Library. Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. Microfilm and artifacts of Goddard’s work are in the Goddard Wing of the Roswell, New Mexico, Museum and Art Center.

II. Secondary Literature. On Goddard or his work, see Wernher von Braun and Frederick I. Ordway, III, History of Rocketry and Space Travel, rev. ed. (New York, 1969), pp. 40–59; Eugene M. Emme, ed., The History of Rocket Technology (Detroit, 1964), pp. 19–28; Bessie Z. Jones, Lighthouses of the Skies: The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Background and History, 1846–1955 (Washington, D.C., 1965), pp. 241–276; Milton Lehman, This High Man: The Life of Robert H. Goddard (New York, 1963), the authorized biography; and Shirley Thomas, Men of Space: Profiles of the Leaders in Space Research, Development, and Exploration, I (Philadelphia, 1960), 23–46.

Loyd S. Swenson, Jr.

Goddard, Robert Hutchings

American Inventor and Educator 1882-1945

Robert Hutchings Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on October 5, 1882. After reading science fiction as a boy, Goddard became excited about exploring space. He pioneered modern rocketry in the United States and founded a field of science and engineering. Goddard received a Ph.D. from Worcester Technical University in 1911 and joined the faculty at Clark University.

As a physics graduate student, Goddard conducted static tests with small solid-fuel rockets, and in 1912 he developed the mathematical theory of rocket propulsion. In 1916 the Smithsonian Institution provided funds for his work on rockets and in 1919 published his research as "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes." Goddard argued that rockets could be used to explore the upper atmosphere and suggested that with a velocity of 11.18 kilometers per second (6.95 miles/second), without air resistance, an object could escape Earth's gravity and head into infinity or to the Moon or other celestial bodies. This became known as Earth's escape velocity.

Goddard's ideas were ridiculed by some in the popular press, prompting him to become secretive about his work. However, he continued his research, and on March 16, 1926, Goddard launched his first liquid-fueled rocket, an event that heralded modern rocketry. On July 17, 1929, he flew the first instrumented payload , consisting of an aneroid barometer, a thermometer, and a camera. This was the first instrument-carrying rocket. After rising about 27 meters (90 feet), the rocket turned and struck the ground 52 meters (171 feet) away, causing a large fire.

Charles A. Lindbergh^* visited Goddard and was sufficiently impressed to persuade philanthropist Daniel Guggenheim to award Goddard a grant of $50,000, with which Goddard set up an experiment station near Roswell, New Mexico. From 1930 to 1941 Goddard launched rockets of ever-greater complexity and capability. The culmination of this effort was the launch of a rocket to an altitude of 2,743 meters (9,000 feet) in 1941. Late in 1941 Goddard entered naval service and spent the duration of World War II developing a jet-assisted takeoff rocket to shorten the distance required for heavy aircraft launches. This work led to the development of the throttlable Curtiss-Wright XLR25-CW-1 rocket engine that later powered the Bell X-1 and helped overcome the transonic barrier in 1947. Goddard died in Baltimore on August 10, 1945.

see also Careers in Rocketry (volume 1); Rocket Engines (volume 1); Rockets (volume 3).

Roger D. Launius

Bibliography

Goddard, Esther C., ed., and G. Edward Pendray, associate ed. The Papers of Robert H. Goddard. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970.

Lehman, Milton. This High Man. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1963.

Winter, Frank H. Prelude to the Space Age: The Rocket Societies, 1924-1940. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983.

^*In 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh became the first pilot to make a non-stop solo flight from New York to Paris.

GODDARD, ROBERT H. 1882-1945

Rocket scientist

Overview

The best rocket research anywhere in the world took place in the United States in the 1920s, and one man, Robert Goddard, was responsible for it. His work on rocketry in the 1920s lay the groundwork for the exploration of outer space that began in the 1960s.

Roots

Robert Hutchings Goddard was born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts, receiving a B.S. from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1908 and earning a Ph.D. in physics at Clark University three years later. After a year of postdoctoral research at Princeton University, the young scientist returned to Clark to teach physics in 1914 and became a full professor in 1919.

Rocket Man

While still in public school Goddard had developed an interest in rockets when he read H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (1898). He came to realize that rockets would be essential for travel in the vacuum of space because they carry not only their own fuel but also the oxidants necessary for the combustion of the fuel. At first Goddard experimented with traditional solid-fuel propulsion, but he soon turned to liquid fuel, taking out a patent for a liquid-fuel system in 1914. During World War I Goddard worked on shoulder-held rocket launchers. Not perfected in time for that war, the weapon became the bazooka used in World War II. He also helped develop larger surface-to-surface and surface-to-air rockets for tactical use on the battlefront.

Space Travel

By 1919 Goddard had realized that liquid fuel was better than solid fuel for achieving the slow, smooth takeoff thrust and the subsequent high-nozzle velocities required for lifting a large vehicle into space. He worked on that project during the first half of the 1920s, largely alone and with a shoestring budget. Finally in 1926, in an event now shrouded in myth, Goddard made his breakthrough.

Liftoff

On the clear, cold day of 16 March 1926 Goddard and two assistants stood on a frozen farm field in Auburn, Massachusetts, and detonated the world's first liquid-fuel rocket. History was made. Goddard had shown that it could be done. Continuing his research, Goddard went on to launch the first instrumented rocket—which carried a barometer, a thermometer, and a camera—on 17 July 1929.

German Advances

Goddard was a loner—almost a hobbyist—and his experiments were underfunded. In the 1930s a heavily funded team of German scientists, led by Werner von Braun, surged ahead of American scientists in rocketry. Yet the Germans built on Goddard's discoveries for their V-2 rocket. Developed in time for use in World War II, it was the first IRBM (intermediate-range ballistic missile), a rocket that actually enters space on the way to its target.

Sources:

Esther C. Goddard and G. Edward Pendray, eds., The Papers of Robert H. Goddard, 3 volumes (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970);

Robert H. Goddard, Rockets (New York: American Rocket Society,1946).

Robert Hutchings Goddard 1882–1945, American physicist and rocket expert, b. Worcester, Mass., grad. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (B.S., 1908), Ph.D. Clark Univ., 1911. From 1914 he was associated with Clark Univ., becoming a professor of physics in 1919. Goddard designed and built early high altitude rockets. In 1926 he completed and successfully fired the world's first liquid fuel rocket. He developed the first smokeless powder rocket, the first practical automatic steering device for rockets, and innumerable other rocket devices. He was one of the first to develop a general theory of rocket action and to prove experimentally the efficiency of rocket propulsion in a vacuum.

Bibliography: See his papers ed. by his wife, Esther C. Goddard (3 vol., 1970).

Goddard, Robert Hutchings (1882–1945) US physicist and pioneer in rocket development. Goddard developed and launched (1926) the first liquid-fuelled rocket, and produced the first smokeless powder rocket and the first automatic steering for rockets.

http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Sgoddard.htm