The Star Sailors

Chapter 3: Flying High

Over the next two years Goddard continued to refine his design for a liquid-fueled rocket. In May of 1928 he had built a rocket that weighed 70 pounds with a motor capable of generating 200 pounds of thrust, however, this rocket did not fly. Tests with this rocket resulted in several explosions. Around the same time Goddard hired his brother-in-law, Albert Kisk, who had experience as a machinist in addition to Clark grad student Lawrence Mansur to assist him in his work. In September of that year, Robert’s father Nahum Goddard died of throat cancer at the age 69, just one month after his retirement.

The flights continued into December 1928 at which time Goddard achieved a short flight. He also began to do work with gyroscopes to provide better stability on longer flights. However, this research was rendered moot by the fact that heat from the rocket exhaust was burning through the combustion chamber. Goddard solved this problem by injecting excess gasoline into the combustion chamber. At the end of the month Goddard flew a rocket to an altitude 204 feet and began to revisit his work with gyroscopes

Around the same time Abbot began prodding Goddard to show more progress with his research. Goddard responded by suggesting his experiments would be safer in a desert environment. Abbot contacted some friends at Mount Wilson to see what could be arranged. He also cited the Germans’ ongoing interest in rocket technology when he asked for Congress $10,000. Abbot was unable to secure the money but promised Goddard $ 5,000 if he could guarantee a successful flight.

In May of 1929, Goddard attempted to launch an 11 foot rocket. The test was a failure due to a faulty fuel line. The next earliest possible test was in July.

The test flight eventually occurred on July 17. The rocket was equipped with scientific instruments and a parachute aid in recovery. Below that were the propellant tanks, combustion chamber and the rocket nozzle which was surrounded by stabilizer fins.

The rocket was launched at 2:00 PM. It lifted off and rose 80 feet into the air. At this point it rolled sideways and crashed 171 feet away. The gasoline tank exploded upon impact and destroyed all of the scientific instruments. The noise was such that neighbors called the police to report a plane crash. Goddard tried to cover the incident up, but hot on the heels of the police and the fire department were a flock of reporters. The next day more wild headlines appeared in the newspaper.

Goddard’s reputation for secrecy was thrust upon him retroactively in the 1950s and this fact is born out by his official biography, which pressed those people who knew him well to emphasize this aspect of his personality. It seems that they obliged, but only to a point. Charles Lindbergh went on record as acknowledging that there was truth to this, but argued that it was common for inventors to remain tight lipped about their work. Harry Guggenheim was known to refer to Goddard as a “lone wolf” and noted that he became very protective of his research if it was attacked or impugned in any way. Of all the people who knew him, only Robert Truax seems to have given Goddard’s biographers what they really wanted. He described Goddard as being “abnormal,” claiming that most rocket researchers were usually very vocal about their work. Truax summed up the general feeling about Goddard when he said:

I think in general most of the other people in the field were somewhat resentful of Goddard because in the early days he was the only one who had any money and the only one who had done any appreciable amount of work on it, but wouldn’t tell any one else what he was doing. They felt that he was sort of cheating everyone else by keeping it all to himself.

Ultimately, while there is some truth behind the legend of Goddard’s secrecy, his choice to remain tight lipped about his work must be placed in context. Goddard had taken great pains encourage the belief that he it was only a matter of time before he attempted a moon landing. The reality was that Goddard’s research was not nearly as advanced as he would have liked. As a result he felt little compulsion to release the technical details of his work. This gave Goddard the appearance of keeping secrets when the truth was that he really had none to keep. The difference between Goddard and other rocket scientists during the 1920s and 30s is Goddard’s insistence on obtaining patents, affidavits and other legal documents to protect his research. Just as Alexander Graham Bell is recognized as the inventor of the telephone because he was able to patent his design before his rivals could do the same, so too is Robert Goddard recognized as one of the fathers of modern rocketry for the same reason.

For the rest of that year Goddard’s research continued uninterrupted. However, the death of Daniel Guggenheim, Harry Guggenheim’s father, combined with the onset of the Great Depression mean that there was very little money available for Goddard to continue his research and he was forced to cease his testing in Roswell, New Mexico and head back east to Clark. While there he was able to secure a $250 grant from the Smithsonian’s Hodgkin’s Fund. It wasn’t much but it allowed him to continue tinkering with his fuel pumps and other small components. In 1930 he also tried to perfect an air breathing rocket that he had patented. Goddard achieved some publicity for this work, but little else.

A close examination of Goddard’s diary from this period in his life shows that he was distracted. Goddard’s diary reflects an increasing amount of time spent copying homilies, sermons and quotations that were meant to be stoical in nature. One such entry in Goddard’s diary reads:

The rocket is very human. It can raise itself to the very loftiest positions sole by the ejection of enormous quantities of hot air. Emerson says, “If a man paint a better picture, preach a better sermon or build a better mouse trap than anyone else, the world will make a beaten path to his door.” I, like many others have had the misfortune not to be an artist, a preacher or a manufacturer of mouse traps.

In May of 1933, Goddard began fund raising again. He sent a long letter to Charles Lindbergh asking to meet with him, as well as Harry Guggenheim and Colonel Henry Breckinridge, Charles Lindbergh’s lawyer. However, Lindbergh, Guggenheim and Breckinridge were having money problems of their own and did not reply to Goddard’s letter. In July of the same year he went to Washington armed with a letter of introduction from Abbot. He first tried to interest the US Navy in funding his research. He initially failed to interest the Navy in his work, but he was eventually able to send an illustrated report to Acting Secretary HL Roosevelt. At the same time, Goddard was encouraged to write Florence Guggenheim by Breckenridge asking for $25,000 to continue his work at Roswell, or failing that, $2,500 which would allow him to continue his research at Clark. Harry Guggenheim answered on behalf of his mother saying that while $25,000 was out of the question, Goddard could expect to receive the $2,500 that would allow him to keep working at Clark University.

As time passed, Goddard became more and more deeply involved in his research. By 1935 there were questions among the Clark trustees as to whether or not Goddard should still be considered a Clark professor, due to his long and continuing absences. The question was resolved for the short term when Goddard received a commitment from Guggenheim to pay the salary of Goddard’s substitute for the next two years. That August, Atwood sent Goddard a letter in which he wrote, “We are all excited over the conspicuous publicity which you are receiving in the papers.”

When Atwood visited Goddard that fall, he told Goddard that he was taking heat from the school trustees regarding Goddard’s status. To which Robert responded by reminding Atwood that his research was a university project. When Atwood invited Goddard to the Clark commencement ceremony, Lindbergh covered his flank by writing a letter that praised both the university and Goddard’s on-going research and had it read at the commencement ceremony. In the winter of 1936 however, Atwood wrote Goddard a letter in which he said, “I have not heard anything of your work for so long that I wonder what is happening.”

Goddard returned to Roswell, New Mexico on September 23, 1934. During their first stay, Goddard and his team had been somewhat aloof from the rest of the town’s population. Now, however, Goddard found himself embraced by the town and its people. He also habitually rhapsodiozed about the beauty of the New Mexico desert as his diary demonstrates. “The dry air and the sunlight seemed very good, after the dingy skies, fog, rain and dampness of the East. It seems as if there were some truth in the saying that there is no air east the Mississippi.”

Goddard’s assistants were also known to wax poetic about the site of their experiments. One former classmate had this to say about Roswell:

It is real western cattle country here and on Saturday afternoons the Main Street of the town is filled with cowboys, with wide hats, high-heeled boots and leather chaps and others who look like old prospectors. We have a mountain about 40 miles away at 10,000 feet high and some higher mountains about 80 miles away, but the country here is very level.

Goddard’s assistants reached Roswell soon after Goddard himself. Esther’s photographs depict the ecstatic men partaking in comic rituals such as taking down the calendar from 1932 and replacing it with one from 1934, in addition Goddard ceremoniously putting on the hat that he had left on his work bench two years before. The return of Goddard to his Roswell testing ground occasioned the usual burst of publicity that often seemed to follow Goddard and was the most dramatic thing to happen until Charles Lindbergh visited Roswell without warning on September 15.

All through the 1930s, Goddard received numerous letters from rocket clubs all over the world. In 1938, the New York Times reported that a “torpedo rocket” had been developed in Britain for use against enemy airplanes. First and foremost in the mind of Robert Goddard, however, were the Germans. When German rocket pioneer Willy Ley came the United States to question Goddard about his work, Robert became convinced that he was the target of Nazi spies. Around this time, Lindbergh returned from a trip to Germany where he had had the opportunity to meet with many of Germany’s leading rocket researchers. Lindbergh came away from these meetings convinced that the Nazis were pursuing rocket technology with an eye toward military applications. Around the same time, Goddard lodged a complaint with Simon & Schuster Publishing. He claimed that the book they were about to print, Rockets Through Space, was biased because its British author, P E Cleator gave more credit to the Germans than Goddard felt they deserved. The publisher responded by adding a footnote that Goddard was actually the first person to build and fly a liquid fueled rocket.

In addition, Goddard also found himself facing competition at home from other rocket researchers in the United States. In 1935, he sent Abbot affidavits from everybody who had been involved in his work since 1920, which were to be deposited at the Smithsonian. Goddard’s goal was to counter the claims coming from Europe that many of the advances in rocketry had been developed there, instead of in the United States.

More and more, Goddard saw himself as being besieged by interlopers. The many amateur rocket clubs that began to appear in the 1930s usually promoted cooperation, however, Goddard was not ready to cooperate with any of these groups because he had not completed his research and as a result they were forced to forge ahead without him. G Edward Pendray’s American Rocket Society in New York made headlines with their launches, as did Willy Ley when he announced that he was going to build a mail carrying rocket. Then a midshipman in the US Navy, Robert Truax sent Goddard a long letter filled with insightful technical questions and shrewd suggestions regarding future rocket development. Truax would eventually go on to direct rocket research and development for the US Navy.

Under other circumstances Goddard’s protectiveness of his work might have been at least tolerated. However, after the cancellation of a meeting between himself and his counterpart at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, Goddard’s reputation seemed to be set in stone. He kept Lindbergh, Abbot and Guggenheim as friends and supporters, but Robert had tested Guggenheim’s patience and Goddard now had the reputation of being an uncooperative loner. Goddard’s isolation was underscored that November when a storm came through Worchester and blew down the cherry tree. When he heard the news Goddard wrote, “Cherry tree down, have to carry on alone.”

The loss of the cherry tree permanently severed Goddard from Worchester and as a result, Robert and Esther settled permanently in Roswell where she began trying to draw Robert out of his shell. In 1940, Esther threw herself into the local activities in Roswell. She joined, among other things, the Woman’s Club, the Shakespeare Club and the Bridge Club. When war broke out in Europe in 1939, Esther began to organize knitting crusades for the Red Cross in addition to raising “Vitamins for Britain.” In 1941 she became president of the Federated Women’s Clubs of New Mexico. In October of 1940 Esther succeeded in drawing Robert out of his shell when he joined the Roswell Rotary Club. It was the first social organization the Goddard had become a member of since joining a fraternity in college.

Goddard’s growing attachment to Roswell was paralleled by a growing estrangement from Clark University. He had never been a particularly effective administrator when working at the University, and at a distance he was a disaster. In September of 1939, Goddard relayed to Atwood a complaint from one of Goddard’s assistants and former Clark physics student, Percy Roope, that math instructor Cary Melville had become rebellious and had refused to take instructions that were being transmitted by Goddard through Roope. He assigned himself the best students and marked his classes far harder than was necessary. When Goddard asked Atwood to straighten the situation out he got a sharp rebuke in reply. “Wire Melville immediately definite instructions regarding courses. You are Chairman.” Atwood very much resented being asked to intervene.

The tension between Goddard and Atwood continued to grow. On more than one occasion Atwood was heard to ask, “What are we going to do about Physics for next year?” In 1939, Goddard traveled to address the heads of Clark’s science programs, which alleviated some of the tension that had grown up over his continuing absence. In 1940, things got tense again when it was suggested that Goddard’s leave of absence should be extended. When word of this reached Guggenheim in Roswell he wrote a letter guaranteeing the substitute professor’s salary for the coming school year.

Relations between Atwood and Goddard worsened further early in 1941 when Atwood complained, “I hear a good many rumblings about this plan of having you away so long and holding the position open for you. We need a stronger set-up in Physics at Clark and one with more permanency.” Goddard responded by arguing that his work was important to national defense and how Atwood’s comments reflected upon the University, when this fact was taken into account.

From this point on, the correspondence between Goddard and Atwood became positively toxic until Goddard was invited to resign in 1942. Goddard would not be edged out of his tenure so easily, however. “The problem is not simple one,” he wrote, “for I, too, will soon reach retiring age. Clark is my alma mater, and Worcester is my home, and it is a severe wrench even now to contemplate severing relations with the University.” Goddard was really only interested in protecting his annuities, but this also seems to indicate that he wanted to stay on speaking terms with Atwood and the Trustees if possible. Atwood, however, wanted to bring Goddard to account for the significant quantities of university equipment in his possession. Goddard, however, refused this and a showdown between the two men was now inevitable.

By this point in his life, Robert Goddard was rivaled only by Thomas Edison as one of the most well known and highly publicized scientists in the United States. In addition, rockets continued to capture the imagination of the public and the interest of the military as was shown when an essay written by an Army officer appeared entitled, “What Can We Expect of Rockets?” in 1939. When a newspaper in Italy reported that the Germans were experimenting with “rocket artillery shells” in 1940. Goddard was contacted by Associated Press. He claimed to have been “disturbed” by this development and said, “I have never investigated the possibility of the rocket being used as a weapon, and this may affect my work.”

This was not true, strictly speaking since Goddard had experimented with rocket powered weapons during World War I. He got away with it, however, because he maintained good relations with important newspapers and reports. Goddard had been cautioned by Lindbergh and Guggenheim to treat the press fairly and for the most part Goddard did so, but he still had his favorite reporters, particularly Howard Blakeslee of the Associated Press, Herbert Nichols of the Christian Science Monitor and science writer William Wenstrom.

Blakeslee wrote this in December of 1940 about one of Goddard’s test flights:

River of Fire. It produced one of the awesome things which strike the eyes of the few persons who have seen one of his rockets taking off. Before it rises, for a second or two, a jet of pure flame strikes down the valley and rolls 50 feet along the surface as a billowing river of fire 10 feet deep. This is the jet of fire which drives the rocket, spreading out as it expands in the air… There is nothing on earth its heat cannot melt.

Goddard, Lindbergh and Guggenheim also knew the value of prestigious coverage in addition to keeping within the good graces of the nation press and at that time, as now, there was no more popular or prestigious publication than National Geographic.

When the United States entered World War II, following the Japanese air strike at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, Goddard once again turned to designing rocket powered weapons. He picked up where he had left off in 1918, however, many technical advances and a shift in the way the war would be fought had occurred in that time and Goddard was forced to start from scratch again. However, one problem remained and that was one of physics. Since the introduction of the tank onto the battlefield in 1916, it had become necessary to find a way for infantry to neutralize enemy tanks. The problem was that if an explosion occurs against a flat surface the majority of the energy will be deflected away from the point of impact. This could be overcome with hardened projectiles moving at a high velocity, but these could only be delivered by airplane or by large artillery guns and were not man portable. A discovery made in 1888 lead to the development of the hollow or shaped charge which would allow a light projectile to penetrate an armored vehicle and allow shrapnel, hot gases and molten metal to enter the crew compartment or the engine space. The idea was sold to the National Defense Research Council by Goddard’s partner, in the venture, CN Hickman, who had also worked with Goddard during World War I, however, Hickman claimed that Goddard should receive the credit for the invention the bazooka because it was his rocket research the made the bazooka possible. Despite Hickman’s willingness to share the credit, no grants from this work were given to Goddard.

It seems that there were limits to Goddard’s acquisitiveness, however. In 1944, after a trip to the Curtiss-Wright plant in Caldwell, New Jersey, Vice President Robert Earle joked with Goddard, “Upon seeing how much you spent for meals I greatly wonder how you can exist on so little food.” This brought out Goddard’s somewhat impish sense of humor when he wrote, “Thank you for your solicitude regarding my meals… I will admit, however, that being a professor for a number of years has developed the habit of living on short rations, besides keeping me a novice in the technique of making out expense accounts. I will see to it that this fault is corrected in the future.”

Overall, Goddard was not a reckless person. He had maneuvered for years to maintain his tenure position at Clark in order to secure a refuge so that he had somewhere to go in case the funding for his rocket research ran out. His running argument with Atwood continued even after Goddard’s research moved to Maryland. There were three bones of contention between Goddard and Atwood. The first was Goddard’s double dipping his retirement plans, which had continued from 1914 onwards. Goddard was now in his sixties and would soon be eligible to collect on those annuities. The second was the large amount of university property that Goddard had in his possession. The third was Goddard’s many leaves of absence from the University.

In 1943, Goddard was earning more money from the government than he was from Clark. He wrote to the TIAA, which was responsible for managing Clark’s retirement plan. Goddard wanted to know if it was possible for to increase the amount of money being paid into the plan. The TIAA responded that this was possible only if Atwood also increased the payments that the University was making into Goddard’s retirement plan. As Goddard had been on numerous extended and unpaid leaves of absence over the past several years, there was no money being paid into his retirement plan. Around the same time, Goddard also contacted the Carnegie Foundation, again inquiring about his annuity. He learned that a large sum of money would be paid to him from the Carnegie Foundation, but that this would not be enough to guarantee a comfortable retirement. Goddard contacted Atwood, again seeking to increase the size of the payments going into Goddard’s annuity. Atwood contacted the University payroll office and told Goddard that he could send his enlarged payments to Worcester and that the University would pass them along to the TIAA from there. As a result, Goddard stood to receive two annuities so long as he held on to his tenure position at the University.

The question of what to do with Goddard’s large amount of shop and laboratory equipment still remained, however. Atwood demanded that the US Navy purchase all of Goddard’s equipment and added that some of the items in Goddard’s possession nominally belong to the Carnegie Foundation and the Smithsonian, actually belonged to Clark University, as it was Clark that was actually receiving the donations from the Smithsonian and the Carnegie Foundation. Goddard responded by saying that much of the equipment from the Smithsonian had been loaned to him personally, while the equipment that he had used while working under with the Navy was US Navy property. The dispute was eventually ended in 1943 when the Guggenheim Foundation agreed to buy Goddard’s equipment from Clark University for $4,600 without an appraisal. Guggenheim believed that this was the simplest course of action and Atwood agreed.

Goddard would not think of retiring from Clark until he had a secure position either in the government or with private industry. To that end he was able to secure a position with Curtiss-Wright Aviation. When Atwood learned of this he sent Goddard a letter asking him how he planned to manage the Physics and Math Departments, while working in the private sector and reminded him that the “men on the ground” must have the ability to plan their courses as they saw fit. Goddard got very angry when he saw this and wrote, “If I understand the first paragraph of your letter…correctly, the University would like to have my resignation at the present time. If this is so I am hereby tendering it.” Atwood wrote “YES!”, and underlined it four times. He also wrote, “I am shocked at your reaction. I have not asked for your resignation from your professorship at Clark.” Goddard responded to this by writing, “I am happy to discover that I have misinterpreted your meaning and shall be glad to continue in my former status as outlined in my letter of January 9, 1943.” In this way Goddard was able to remain both a Professor at Clark and the head of the Physics and Math departments.

The showdown between Goddard and Atwood that had been brewing for years finally came in August, 1943. After the departure of yet another substitute professor, Atwood wrote to Goddard, saying, “We have another emergency to meet…We simply can not keep a good man here without any prospect open to him for the future.” As Clark was taking on what Atwood called, “Army emergency work,” the school trustees decided that it would be best if Goddard would return to oversee the running of the Physics Department. Goddard responded to this request with a telegram, in which he wrote, “Hence I must regretfully resign in order to help you meet the present emergency.” Goddard also sent Atwood a letter that stated:

As I stated, I feel that I can be of enough service in the war effort to make my decision to remain here the only course to follow. The fact that I am near the retiring age is also a factor of definite weight. A third point is that I doubt if I could lecture as soon as September. I had a severe cold last spring which settled in the larynx and a specialist tells me I ought not to speak above a whisper for about two months.

Atwood accepted Goddard’s notice of resignation without hesitation. At the same time, Atwood also announced that Clark would no longer offer graduate studies to Physics students. This decision was due in equal parts to Goddard’s negligence and Atwood’s plundering.

When Goddard returned to Annapolis in 1944, he found that his workshop was plagued with rumors that he and his men would soon be terminated. These rumors arose out of the usual delays caused by US Navy contract renewal process and eventually, Goddard’s government contracts were renewed and he would be allowed to continue his work through to June, 1945. In April of 1944, however, Goddard discovered that Curtiss-Wright and the US Navy had been dealing behind his back, making arrangements to move Goddard, his men and their equipment to Caldwell. In order to relieve him unnecessary paperwork, Goddard’s work for the US Navy would now be under contract to Curtiss-Wright.

In June of that same year, book critic Edmund Wilson wrote a favorable review of Rockets by Willy Ley. Not long afterward, Goddard wrote to Wilson, with the intent of countering the impression that the Germans had had any first in rocket research. Three days later on June 13, 1944, the first Nazi built V-1 flying bomb hit London. Also called a “buzz bomb, “doodle bug” or “cherry stone” the V-1 was an air breathing pulse jet providing power to what would later be recognized as the world’s first operation use of a cruise missile. In addition the warhead, the V-1 also had a simple guidance and timing system that was designed to cut off the engine so that it could fall on the target city. Goddard was swamped by requests from reporters for the V-1’s technical information. Goddard was unable to offer details until August, at which time he made the following statement to the North American Newspaper Alliance:

The V-1 flying bomb as a flight controlled plane has already been shown to be an American idea through patents to [Charles F.] Kettering and [Elmer A] Sperry. The jet-propulsion engine is another. Features of the patent that appear in the bomb engine are shutter-type valves in a fixed grill; fuel injection orifices incorporated in this grill; combustion chamber; spark plug; and nozzle… Anyone could have read it during the last ten years.

The reality was that, while Goddard did submit a patent for an air-breathing rocket engine in the early 1930s, the engine that powered the V-1 was actually an outgrowth of a patent issued to Paul Schmidt of Munich, Germany in 1930. Walter Dornberger, later head of the German V-2 project described, some of the inner workings of the V-1 pulse jet. The V-1’s pulse jet created approximately 500 explosions per minute. It did this by sucking air through “a grid valve fitted to the duct head and provided with many rows of single flap plated opening inward. Fuel oil was injected into the compressed air and ignited. The resultant combustion closed the valve flaps of the grid forward and forced the combustion gases and the air contained in the duct astern. This was accompanied by powerful expansion of the gases and reaction propulsion took place.” While there were some minor technical similarities between the Goddard and Schmidt designs, but ultimately the pulse jet developed for the V-1 was of German origin.

The rocket motor for the V-2, however, was a completely different story. Unlike the V-1, the V-2 was a true rocket. A memorandum shown to Goddard by Guggenheim at Mercer Field, New Jersey where Guggenheim was the commanding officer, confirmed Goddard’s belief that the Germans had been stealing American rocket research and passing it off as their own. To further illustrate his point, Goddard showed Guggenheim a picture of a rocket he had built at Roswell and compared it with photographs of captured V-2s. The two designs were almost identical.

Despite this, however, there seems to be little evidence linking Goddard’s influence to Nazi rocket development. Some of the Nazi scientist who emigrated to the United States after the war claimed that Goddard’s work had not been published in Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler. This is supported by Esther Goddard, who conducted her own search for links between Goddard and the V-2 and found nothing. Dornberger made repeated claims that rocket research was a complicated undertaking that required teamwork and was beyond the reach of solitary inventors like Goddard.

However, at the same time, Dornberger, Von Braun and other German scientists found it useful to maintain a perceived connection between themselves and Goddard. They believed that having an American doing the same research at the same time made them less complicit in the atrocities that occurred at Camp Dora and the Mittlewerk in Central Germany. They also claimed that majority of Goddard’s patents were classified. This is now known to be untrue, as the Goddard work was not classified until 1942. The idea that Goddard was unknown in Germany before the war is also untrue. When trying to secure more funding for their work, Dornberger and others often placed their arguments within the framework of an international arms race and often cited Goddard as proof that the United States was winning. The truth was during the 1930s, Germans used their military and diplomatic attaches to spy on American rocket research by using them to acquire Goddard’s patents. The result was that while Goddard’s designs were not directly copied by the Germans, the remarkable similarities between the rockets built by Goddard and those built by the Nazis indicates that the Germans were keenly aware of Goddard’s work and drawing inspiration from him, while at the same time adapting his research to fit their own needs.

During the first two months that they lived in Maryland, the Goddards rented a home in Annapolis. In October they moved to the small resort community of Tydings-on-the-Bay. It was cooler here than at Annapolis and closer to Goddard’s work in addition to offering a magnificent view of the Chesapeake Bay. “We are simply loving the place,” said Esther, “tho I am still scouring in spots.”

In October, 1944, Robert and Esther moved to a larger house. Its yard was so large that Esther and Robert were able to take up archery. Esther loved the house, but Robert claimed that it was too big and gloomy. He was heard on several occasions telling friends that he wanted to go back to Roswell. That same year, Esther enrolled at Johns Hopkins University. A house keeper was hired to look after the house and Robert bought his wife a car for the commute to the train station.

Due their location and wartime rationing, the Goddards found that their social life had become more restricted. Christmas was the high point of the year with Robert receiving scotch and cigars. The Goddard also still traveled, mainly to New England, Baltimore and Washington to see the sights and visit old friends. Further restricting their social activities was Goddard’s work for the US Navy, which was very demanding and often required him to work upwards of 50 hours per week. By 1944, Goddard was spending most of his time organizing his research notes made during the 1920s and 30s. He also found that because of the war, Goddard was receiving very little in the way of publicity. He was pleased, however, to be credited as a contributing source to the development of the first British and American jet fighters, which were being tested at the end of the war. Goddard was also annoyed that he had to share credit with the Russian rocket scientist Tsiolkovsky.

While working at Annapolis, Goddard continued his relationship with G Edward Pendray of the American Rocket Society, who had long been a fan of Goddard and his work. After the first launches of the V-1 and V-2, Pendray wrote many letters to a wide variety of newspapers extolling Goddard and his work and reminding the American public that it was Goddard who had developed the first liquid fueled rockets. When Pendray went so far as to propose that the Smithsonian republish Goddard’s two reports on rocket science for that institution, Goddard was delighted and wrote a short introduction.

By late 1944, Goddard was unwell. Starting in the year before the entry, “stayed in bed all day” began to appear with increasing frequency in Goddard’s diary. In June, Goddard visited Baltimore TB specialist Dr. Charles R Austrian who referred him to Dr. Henry Slack, a throat specialist. Dr. Slack advised Goddard not to talk at all and that his voice would improve on its own. It seemed to work for awhile, but by the time winter came, Goddard was often bedridden.

His inability to speak also interfered with is research, unable to speak, Goddard tried writing, however, his assistants found that his writing was so bad as to be almost unreadable. He even tried to communicating with his research team through morse code by tapping on a table with a pencil. This was also a dismal failure.

In March, 1945 Robert and Esther went to dinner at the Army-Navy Club in Washington DC as the guests of Commander Charles Fischer, one of Goddard’s patrons in the Navy. During dinner Goddard suffered from such a severe upset stomach that the alarmed Commander drove them home. In May Goddard once again visited Dr. Slack who flatly told him to take a vacation. The Navy obliged Goddard by giving him and his team two week off before moving them to New Jersey. Ultimately the vacation did little to help Goddard and when he returned, Dr. Slack referred him a surgeon, Dr. Edwin Looper who found a growth in Goddard’s throat. On May 19^th, Dr. Looper operated and removed Goddard’s larynx and Upper Trachea in the process. Goddard received many letters of sympathy and good wishes from family and friends. Guggenheim, was by this time serving as the executive officer aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific wrote to Goddard saying:

The thing for you to do now is get complete rest somewhere, and make a full recovery. In the meantime, don’t worry about jet propulsion or anything else. Your experiments have been many a year in the making and there is a long road ahead, so a few months more or less will really make no difference. Your job is to get your mind off anything but your health, and when that has been recovered, we’ll make a fresh start on the great future ahead.

Even Wallace Atwood, who had ceased to be a friend years ago sent Goddard a letter full of good wishes.

Goddard’s stubborn nature had seen him through tuberculosis, battles with smoking, drinking and countless failed experiments. It could not, however, defeat throat cancer, the disease that had claimed his father. He lingered for awhile in an oxygen tent, sustained by regular blood transfusions and tended to by a nurse. Esther stayed at his side day and night until August 10^th, 1945 when she needed to go home for a few hours. While she was away, Robert Hutchings Goddard died. He was 63 years old. Goddard was buried in the family plot on August 13^th. His death was commented on by many of the newspapers who had charted his progress towards the moon. Many of the same papers claimed that he was the inventor of the V-2 rocket. Edward Pendray wrote this obituary for the AAAS Journal, Science:

Even more impressive than Dr. Goddard’s technical skill, insight and ingenuity were his extraordinary perseverance, patience and courage. He carried on many of his investigations in the teeth of public skepticism and indifference, with limited financial resources and in spite of heartbreaking technical difficulties-a combination of obstacles which might have baffled and disheartened a less stout-hearted pioneer. Almost single-handed, Dr. Goddard developed rocketry from a vague dream to one of the most significant branches of modern engineering.

After his death, rocket research in the United States continued, often relying heavily on Goddard’s pioneering researcher. Goddard’s influence was felt to such an extent that it was simply not possible to build or fly rockets without touching on Goddard’s research in some way. The depth of Goddard’s contribution to the emerging science of rocketry was such that Esther felt that the world needed to know exactly how far Goddard had advanced development of rocket technology.

The writer she chose was Wesley Price, an assistant editor of The Saturday Evening Post. When Esther showed Price the material that she had available, he immediately submitted a book proposal to Farrar, Straus and Young. Given that Roger Straus was the nephew of Harry Guggenheim and that the Straus family were the directors of the Guggenheim Foundation, Price’s book proposal was approved at once and in 1954 he began conduction interviews with Goddard’s associates. Price worked on the project for two years until he suffered a physical break down was forced to abandon the project. The writer hired to replace him was Milton Lehman, a publicist for the Motion Picture Association of America. He had originally come to Esther’s attention in 1954, when he published a series of articles on Goddard and his work, as well as other pieces related to rocket science.

Lehman started conducting interviews in 1956, beginning with Charles Lindbergh who told him, “he feels that this book should be timeless. It should be a permanent reference.” Lindbergh would become so involved in the production of the book, as to practically be its coauthor. The book would eventually be called This High Man and would not be published until 1963. Likewise, Esther would not receive compensation for government infringements of Robert’s patents until much later that Esther would eventually receive a million dollars from the US Government as settlement for her patent infringement suit.

Although Goddard did not directly influence the development of German rockets as has long been claimed by his official biography, This High Man. The depth of his contribution to the development of space flight is undeniable and it is for this reason that he is rightly remembered as of the great scientific figures of the 20^th Century, as well carrying the mantle, “The Father of the Space Age.”

In May of 1929, Goddard attempted to launch an 11 foot rocket. The test was a failure due to a faulty fuel line. The next earliest possible test was in July.

I think in general most of the other people in the field were somewhat resentful of Goddard because in the early days he was the only one who had any money and the only one who had done any appreciable amount of work on it, but wouldn’t tell any one else what he was doing. They felt that he was sort of cheating everyone else by keeping it all to himself.

The rocket is very human. It can raise itself to the very loftiest positions sole by the ejection of enormous quantities of hot air. Emerson says, “If a man paint a better picture, preach a better sermon or build a better mouse trap than anyone else, the world will make a beaten path to his door.” I, like many others have had the misfortune not to be an artist, a preacher or a manufacturer of mouse traps.

Goddard’s assistants were also known to wax poetic about the site of their experiments. One former classmate had this to say about Roswell:

It is real western cattle country here and on Saturday afternoons the Main Street of the town is filled with cowboys, with wide hats, high-heeled boots and leather chaps and others who look like old prospectors. We have a mountain about 40 miles away at 10,000 feet high and some higher mountains about 80 miles away, but the country here is very level.

Blakeslee wrote this in December of 1940 about one of Goddard’s test flights:

River of Fire. It produced one of the awesome things which strike the eyes of the few persons who have seen one of his rockets taking off. Before it rises, for a second or two, a jet of pure flame strikes down the valley and rolls 50 feet along the surface as a billowing river of fire 10 feet deep. This is the jet of fire which drives the rocket, spreading out as it expands in the air… There is nothing on earth its heat cannot melt.

As I stated, I feel that I can be of enough service in the war effort to make my decision to remain here the only course to follow. The fact that I am near the retiring age is also a factor of definite weight. A third point is that I doubt if I could lecture as soon as September. I had a severe cold last spring which settled in the larynx and a specialist tells me I ought not to speak above a whisper for about two months.

The V-1 flying bomb as a flight controlled plane has already been shown to be an American idea through patents to [Charles F.] Kettering and [Elmer A] Sperry. The jet-propulsion engine is another. Features of the patent that appear in the bomb engine are shutter-type valves in a fixed grill; fuel injection orifices incorporated in this grill; combustion chamber; spark plug; and nozzle… Anyone could have read it during the last ten years.

The thing for you to do now is get complete rest somewhere, and make a full recovery. In the meantime, don’t worry about jet propulsion or anything else. Your experiments have been many a year in the making and there is a long road ahead, so a few months more or less will really make no difference. Your job is to get your mind off anything but your health, and when that has been recovered, we’ll make a fresh start on the great future ahead.

Even Wallace Atwood, who had ceased to be a friend years ago sent Goddard a letter full of good wishes.

Even more impressive than Dr. Goddard’s technical skill, insight and ingenuity were his extraordinary perseverance, patience and courage. He carried on many of his investigations in the teeth of public skepticism and indifference, with limited financial resources and in spite of heartbreaking technical difficulties-a combination of obstacles which might have baffled and disheartened a less stout-hearted pioneer. Almost single-handed, Dr. Goddard developed rocketry from a vague dream to one of the most significant branches of modern engineering.

Consequently, in the late 1940s with the help of her late husband’s old friend and benefactor, Harry Guggenheim, Esther began to undertake the monumental task of organizing Robert’s notes. With the assistance of two typists, Esther transcribed 5,500 pages of notes in addition to mounting and labeling well over 2,000 photographs. Esther also transcribed Goddard’s diaries and with the assistance of Pendray completed a project that Goddard had started the year before his death, the compilation of all of his laboratory notes from 1929 to 1941. At the same time she began negotiations with the US Government for official recognition of Goddard’s work and monetary compensation for the infringement of Goddard’s patents. These negotiations continued at a slow pace until 1953, when Esther took matters into her own hand and began to look for a writer who could produce an acceptable biography. The writer she chose was Wesley Price, an assistant editor of The Saturday Evening Post. When Esther showed Price the material that she had available, he immediately submitted a book proposal to Farrar, Straus and Young. Given that Roger Straus was the nephew of Harry Guggenheim and that the Straus family were the directors of the Guggenheim Foundation, Price’s book proposal was approved at once and in 1954 he began conduction interviews with Goddard’s associates. Price worked on the project for two years until he suffered a physical break down was forced to abandon the project. The writer hired to replace him was Milton Lehman, a publicist for the Motion Picture Association of America. He had originally come to Esther’s attention in 1954, when he published a series of articles on Goddard and his work, as well as other pieces related to rocket science. Lehman started conducting interviews in 1956, beginning with Charles Lindbergh who told him, “he feels that this book should be timeless. It should be a permanent reference.” Lindbergh would become so involved in the production of the book, as to practically be its coauthor. The book would eventually be called This High Man and would not be published until 1963. Likewise, Esther would not receive compensation for government infringements of Robert’s patents until much later that Esther would eventually receive a million dollars from the US Government as settlement for her patent infringement suit.

Written by trlong36

December 9, 2008 at 10:31 pm

Posted in Chapter 3

Tagged with Chapter 3

Chapter 2: The First Rocket Man

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Since it was first told over two thousand years ago, the myth of Daedalus has fired the imaginations of inventors and scientists around the world. Knowing this, it is not surprising to learn that the story of the first aviator stoked the imagination of an 18 year old named Robert Goddard when he observed the flight of birds in 1901. His observations would lead him to write a letter to the editor of St. Nicholas Magazine in which he stated that he was convinced that birds did not steer with their tails but with their wings. 20 years later he would apply the same observation to direct rockets in flight. He also became convinced that this was way best method of controlling airplanes.

Robert Hutchings Goddard was born on October 5, 1882 in the family home of Maple Hill in Worcester, Massatuchutes. Worchester was a typical east coast city in the 1ate 19^th Century. The Industrial Revolution had made it into a city that was sometimes called “The Heart of the Commonwealth.” Most of Worchester’s population was comprised of immigrants who lived in ethnic neighborhoods. In addition, there was also a sizable protestant population, most of who lived on the fringes of the central area of the city. It was in this area where Goddard was born in a house that dated back to the beginning of the 19^th Century.

In addition to its industrial history, Worchester was also known for producing several great inventors among them were, Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton ginny, JC Stoddard, and Ichabod Washburn. The city also boasted no less then six colleges, and had a tradition of hosting lectures in the town’s theatres. Worchester had also produced several prominent novelists and sports stars. As a result, Goddard’s hometown was often seen as epitomizing New England industry. The same could be said for Goddard’s family as well, as Robert was able to trace his ancestors to back 17^th Century English Immigrants and could boast among his predecessors, participants in Boston Tea Party and veterans of both the American Revolution and the American Civil War.

Robert’s grandfather, Nahum Parks Goddard moved to Worchester from Boston in the 1870s and moved into Maple Hill where his wife Mary Pease Goddard became head of the household. The move from Boston uprooted his grown-up son, Nahum Danford Goddard who had worked in Boston with local businessman WB Brown. Nahum came to Worchester and with the help of Brown’s recommendation was able to secure a job as a book keeper for C Hardy and Company, which was engaged in the production of industrial knives for the paper and textile industries. The business was co-owned by Henry A. Hoyt, who also had a daughter named Fannie Louise. Fannie fell in love with Nahum and despite the fact that her father objected to the match, she married Nahum Danford Goddard on his birthday, January 3, 1882. Their son, Robert Goddard was born 9 months later.

Robert Goddard was described as a precocious and constantly active child who grew up in a typical middle class home in a typical American city. Goddard was doted upon by his Grandmother who provided encouragement for his exploration and was seen by him as a font of wisdom and knowledge. Family records also indicate that Goddard was often sickly as a child. The ability to overcome adversity such as those presented by his apparently poor health and the failure of many of his childhood experiments gives the story of Goddard’s life feeling of relentless determination, as he would often try, fail, and try again. This gives the impression that Goddard was a frail, yet energetic and persistent boy genius who, even at a very young age, was possessed of a towering intellect. While there may possibly be some truth this, it has been determined that Goddard’s childhood has been too idealized by his family to refer to a real person.

Indeed, it has been suggested that Goddard himself wanted to be regarded a child genius and a story was told often told by family about Goddard had shown an interest in mechanical things as an infant. The story is that he spent a trolley trip to Boston studying the bell cord system that was mounted in the top of the cabin. It was also said that when Goddard was two or three years old, he could be silenced for half the day just by staring out the window at the freight yard near his house and watching the trains moving around the yard.

When Goddard was 17, the family moved back into Maple Hill. Maple Hill was something of step down, as the house was heated a coal-burning Franklin stove in the dining room and had only an iron sink with a hand pump in the kitchen and an outhouse behind the woodshed. Maple Hill was owned by Goddard’s Grandmother which meant that she was now a constant prescience in his life, and not just frequent visitor. Around this time Goddard also started to keep a diary and began to emerge from the shadow of his idealized childhood. He kept his diary until his death in 1945, but in 1904 burned his childhood notebooks, believing that the work he done to that point was childish and fruitless. Goddard’s diary also indicates that he was confined to the house by his Grandmother, as though very ill, although he doesn’t state what this illness was. In any case, he began to read voraciously at this time. Included in his reading material was HG Wells’ science fiction classic, War of the Worlds which depicted a Martian invasion of Earth.

Although the book’s basic message of anti-imperialism and anti-vivisection were over Goddard’s head, War of the Worlds sparked an interest in space flight that Goddard wrote about in his dairy.

On the afternoon of October 19, 1899, I climbed a tall cherry tree at the back of the barn… and armed with a saw, which I still have, and a hatchet, started to trim the dead leaves from the cherry tree…I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale, if sent up from the meadow at my feet…I was different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended, for existence at last seemed very purposive.

From that day forth, Goddard became of the enamored possibility of flying to the moon and always referred to October 19 as Anniversary Day in his diary. Goddard’s notes indicate that fantasy was less important then the associated scientific observations. However, Goddard also had tendency to venerate his early experiments and ideas, as he still had the saw as souvenir 25 years later and reportedly photographed the cherry tree on numerous occasions. Goddard’s diary suggests that he credited his entire scientific career to this single event.

Goddard enrolled South High School as a sophomore in 1901 on his 19^th Birthday and proved to be adept at English, math, and science. He also showed no signs of the ailments that were purported to have plagued him growing up. During his time at South High School Goddard was elected class president twice.

When Goddard was 19, he wrote an essay entitled, “The Navigation of Space.” In this paper he addressed the idea a gun launched spacecraft, as well as the possibility of using magnets. He spent most of the paper, however, discussing ways of avoiding meteors and concluded that space flight was impossible with current technology, but added that it may be possible at some point in the future. He sent his paper to “Popular Science” which rejected it and wrote another essay entitled, “The Habitability of Other Worlds,” that has since vanished.

Goddard also wrote to the leading experts in many different scientific fields seeking advice and answers to questions. For example, Goddard had an idea for an automatic balancing system and received a reply from the Army Medical Museum explaining the function the inner ear. He also wrote to the Smithsonian for information concerning radio waves and sent a letter to the editor of Scientific American asking about the amalgamation of gold and mercury. Goddard always received informative and friendly responses to his queries. At the same time, his experiments became more practical as his diary entries dated July, 1903 can attest to.

Goddard went to college at Worchester Polytechnic Institute. WPI was originally the dream of a group of leading manufacturers in Worchester at end Civil War. Included among the school’s founders were Worchester natives Ichabod Washburn and John Bounton, both of who had buildings named after them. WPI was founded the belief that the age of the uneducated entrepreneur over to due the widespread scientific, social and financial changes that were starting to become evident in the middle and later half of the 19^th Century.

It was also believed that Worchester needed a school that could provide a practical education for the leaders of tomorrow. With these goals in mind, Washburn and Bounton, along with other manufacturers formed a committee whose intent was to raise money and obtain a legislative charter from Worchester County to create what they called the Free Institute of Industrial Science, which opened its doors in the fall of 1865. By 1898 the school had changed its name to Worchester Polytechnic Institute and evolved into a 4 year institution offering degrees in science and engineering.

When Robert Goddard arrived there in 1904 he found a thriving that school had a reputation for attracting the very best scholars to its faculty. Two professors in particular would have special on influence Goddard. The first was A Wilmer Duff, an applied physics specialist who did research on ballistic trajectories and electricity. The other was Prof. Zelotes W. Cook who taught Goddard how to express himself. The result of this was that Goddard’s mind would be sharpened by four years of rigorous instruction so that by the time of his graduation 1908, Goddard was a general science major and had decided to devote himself to solving the problems of space flight. He still had no idea how to address them, but he was at least able to approach the problem in a rational manner.

By the time of his graduation, Goddard was bald and lanky with a thoughtful, placid face. His senior thesis paper was entitled, “On Some Peculiarities of Electrical Conductivity.” Goddard’s thesis was good enough for Duff to arrange for Goddard to be given a teaching position for the 1908-09 school year. Around the same time Goddard also wrote a paper about the exceptions of Ohm’s Law regarding electrical current passing through different kinds of electrolytic powders. This resulted in a patent for a new kind of electric oscillator tube.

This was a productive time for Robert Goddard. His days were filled school work and his nights were filled with making copious notes in his diary. Goddard would later develop a reputation for being closed mouthed, as his autobiography demonstrates when he claimed that he kept his ideas about space to himself fear of ridicule. The paper trail, however, suggests otherwise. In 1907, Goddard used an old high school paper in an assignment for one of his classes. He augmented his paper with material lifted his notes and used it to write a new paper in which he outlined the three major problems of maintaining life and avoiding accidents in space. Goddard quickly dealt with the first two and then turned his attention to the problem of propulsion. He came to the conclusion that a way needed to be found to accelerate a vehicle to 4.01 miles per second and also stated that he believed that a combination of solar and nuclear energy would give the desired result.

Goddard left WPI and went to teach at Clark University in 1909. Clark bore the name of its founder, Jonas Clark who had his made fortune in the California Gold Rush. He had returned east in 1864, where he invested heavily real estate in New York City and became very wealthy as a result. Clark had different motives then the founders of WPI and wanted to provide students with a practical education. Clark sought to combine the best examples of higher education in Europe and the United States. When Clark University opened its doors in 1889, it became only the second post-graduate institution in the United States and was preceded in that regard by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

During the winter of 1912 and 13, Goddard suffered a series of bad chest colds while visiting his parents that March. When Goddard failed to recover, the family physician, Dr. Fisher, was called, who in turn a called TB expert named Dr.Capham. Following Dr. Capham’s examination, it was determined that Goddard had come down with Tuberculosis and was given two weeks to live. Fearing that he would die before his ideas could be proven, Goddard wrote to his Grandmother who was then living in Princeton and asked to have all his papers sent to his parents’ house. The situation was further complicated when Goddard’s father went blind and the family had to hire a nurse to look after him. Almost in defiance of his illness and his doctor, Goddard displayed his boyhood penchant of demonstrating the truth behind improbabilities and engineered his own health regime. He designed deep breathing experiments and spent as much time outdoors as possible. It was during this time that he was visited by Dr. John Hubbard, a Clark College physic professor and Dr. Harold Stimson, both of whom became some of Goddard’s closest friends.

Goddard began to recover and was observed by his doctor to be improving steadily. By late March, he was back at work and May he was eating with the family again. Goddard had recovered to the point that he was also getting to ready a submit patent application and by the Spring of 1914 Goddard had returned to work at Clark, although only in a part time capacity. In October of 1913 Goddard began to outline the next step to reach space. However, his diary indicates that he was still somewhat unfocused and unsure what direction to take his research.

Goddard was issued his first patent for his rocket research on July 7, 1914, patent # 1,102,653. This patent represented an important moment in the history of rocket development. The reason for this is because Goddard’s patent covered every of aspect of rocketry and demonstrated that guidable rockets are more complex then simple fireworks. It also established Goddard’s claim in American patent law to the idea of step or multistage rockets, although in actuality a patent for this idea had been issued in Belgium in 1911. In addition, fireworks makers had dabbled with the concept of successive propulsion for several centuries. Despite this, however, Goddard was able to do something much more fundamental with his first patent. In addition to working out the basic principles of rocket flight, Goddard added a De Laval nozzle to his design. In simple terms the De Laval nozzle was a conical attachment was fixed to the exit port through which the rocket motor’s exhaust gasses would flow. The purpose of the De Laval nozzle was to trap the exhaust gasses and direct them downwards. Goddard believed that in so doing he would be able to produce more efficient and powerful rocket motors.

With the addition of his exhaust nozzle and combustion chamber, Goddard redefined what a rocket was and demonstrated that it was possible to build a rocket that was both efficient and controllable. This was important because Goddard understood that an efficient propulsion system would be important if a rocket were to one day fly in space.

Goddard’s notes from this period indicate that he originally wanted to build a rocket that contained a breach lock mechanism and shoot solid powder charges. He added a description of a liquid fueled rocket motor as an after thought. His notes indicate that he had considered the idea of a liquid fueled rocket in general terms before this point, but had come the conclusion that a solid power design would be bother safer and easier to work with. However, patent # 1,103,503 ensured that Robert Goddard would be remembered as the father of liquid fueled rocketry.

Goddard has always been known for his lifelong emphasis to ensuring that his contributions would be remembered and recognized. This actually bothered some of Goddard’s colleagues while he was alive. This was due to the fact that in research science, much emphasis is placed on the free exchange of ideas through the publication of journal articles.

However, Goddard had practical reasons for acting to ensure that his ideas were protected. Goddard had long claimed that he had invented the aileron the aileron and simply failed to patent the idea. Consequently, he watched with interest as the Wright Bros. tried to protect their airplane in a landmark court case against Glenn Curtis as he tried to sue the Ohio bicycle mechanics, claiming that they had stolen his ideas. The case was settled out of court and the Wrights were awarded $500,000. Goddard would later express regret that he had not patented his idea for the aileron and saw in the Wrights’ continuing court battles, as an eloquent argument for why he felt he needed to patent his rocket research, so that it could not usurped and claimed as someone else’s ideas.

Around the same time Goddard wrote a paper entitled, “Outline of an Article on ‘The Navigation of Interplanetary Space.’” This paper drew heavily on Goddard’s childhood day dreams and his high school writings in addressing the whole problem of space flight. The paper considered many different ideas, including atomic and ionic drive systems that would utilize Goddard’s oscillator tubes. In addition, he also explored the idea of using gun cotton as fuel. He also believed that liquid hydrogen and oxygen were impractical as a propellant for launching a rocket into Earth orbit, but believed that the moon would be an ideal manufacturing base at which produce liquid fuels could be produced for further solar exploration. Goddard also suggested using solar sails and closed his paper by briefly the problems of life support and navigation.

The unfocused nature of this paper suggests that Goddard was still suffering from the effects of TB. The reason for this is because Goddard was still focusing on the mechanics of his how proposed rocket, which was basically a flying machine gun, might work and did not examine the practical physics of space flight in general. Goddard also briefly addressed the concept the multistage rocket. He later made claims that had had always intended to use a multi-stage design although his first two patents suggest otherwise. Goddard also suggested launching a large amount of flash powder into space, which he believed would be seen in telescopes on Earth when ignited. This is also important because it represents the first time that Goddard’s writings represent something closer to science then science fiction.

Like the period of 1908 and 1909, 1912 and 1913 was another very productive period for Robert Goddard. His overriding concern was the question of demonstrating the efficiency of rockets efficiency and in September of that year designed a rocket motor that he claimed would 63% fuel efficient, as compared with steam power which was 21% efficient and diesel power which was 40% efficient. Goddard also began searching for an explosive he could use as fuel and to that end wrote to the Maxim Gun Company asking for advice in this matter, as well as for advice in the manufacturing of nitrocellulose cartridges for his rocket fuel.

During World War I Goddard did design work on rocket propelled weapons and performed demonstrations of the working prototypes for observers from the US Army in addition to the Navy. Goddard demonstrated both single and multiple charge rocket launched weapons for observers from the Army and the Navy. Goddard’s government audience was very impressed with his work, however, the war ended a few days after his demonstration and as a result ended the government’s need to pursue military rocketry.

This episode gave rise to another part Goddard’s legend. Specifically, that he is the inventor of the bazooka. While this may be true in a very general sense, the real story is not that simple because Goddard’s weapon designs contain distinct technical differences from the man-portable anti-tank weapons used on the battlefields of World War II. Also the question needs to be asked whether or not Goddard’s weapons would have actually been useful in a war dominated by trench combat, like World War I. This doubt is further reinforced by the fact that the only pieces small artillery used in World War I were trench mortars and while Goddard did design a rocket powered mortar, however, the weapons he demonstrated for the Army and the Navy were his long range, tube launched weapons. Although to be fair, no one at the time seemed to have any idea just how widespread the use of small rockets on the battlefield would become.

When Goddard returned to Clark in December, 1918 he returned to a well equipped laboratory, complete with a fully equipped machine shop and also skilled mechanics that were able produce any part that Goddard required. This could easily be could compared to a modern Indy Car pit crew which is capable of building an entire engine and drive train from scratch if required. This is an apt description of the personnel and resources placed under Goddard’s supervision, as he now had capability of being able to produce an entire rocket from scratch.

In February, 1919 Goddard went to Washington DC looking for funding. While he was there, he lobbied the Smithsonian and Weather Bureau in addition to the Bureau of Standards, however, none of these government offices were able to help him. Goddard still had some money available from his Hodgkin’s Grant However, this would not be made available until 1920, due to the inevitable post-war budgetary confusion. As a result Goddard was left with no choice but to try and enlist public support. This proved to be a disaster, however, and resulted in wild, sensational stories appearing in the press that did more harm than good.

In the mean time, Goddard continued to try and develop his solid fuel rocket and its automatic reloader, however, Goddard was running out of ideas for how to make it work, or even how make it light enough to fly. Fortunately, his decision to include a liquid fueled design in his 1914 patent gave him a fall back position. Consequently, Goddard began to reexamine the idea of a liquid fueled rocket motor, which he mentioned in his note book in 1909, as well as his 1914 patent. At the same time, Goddard also returned the idea of using hydrogen oxygen as a potential fuel source. His reasoning was that both are elements readily available, in their gaseous form, however, Goddard felt that they occupied too much space. In response to this, he reasoned that hydrogen and oxygen in their liquid state would theoretically be the ideal rocket fuel because both elements are at their most condensed when in liquid form. Due to the technological limitations of the early 20^th Century, Goddard did not have access to liquid hydrogen, which would not become available until the 1960s and the start of the space race, however, liquid oxygen, often referred to simply as LOX, was produced as a byproduct in the manufacturing of gases used in oxyacetylene welding torches.

In 1921 Goddard began to think seriously about using liquid fuels and began trying to make arrangements acquire LOX from a local source. He would later the explain the delay, arguing that while liquid fuels were ideal and that no such rockets had ever been built before, adding that he believed solid fuels were both easier and safer to work with. Around the same time in 1919 and 20, Goddard became famous as a prophet for the future of rocketry and the furthering of space flight development. The press reported that Goddard’s rocket research benefited from patronage with the War Department, the Smithsonian, Clark University and Worchester Polytechnic Institute in a story that appeared on March 30 in Washington about Goddard’s “Terrible Engine of War.” Goddard was negligent in that he did not make the Smithsonian or the War Department aware that he had been approached by someone familiar with Goddard’s work.

At the same time Goddard was urged to publish the results of his research. He did so by combining his previous three articles, “Problem of Raising a Body,” published in 1914, “Method of Sending Recording Apparatus to and Beyond the Highest Levels of the Atmosphere,” published in 1916 and “Results on a Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes,” which was published in 1918. These were combined to create a new text published by the Smithsonian with the clearance of the Ordinance Department and given with a display of some of Goddard’s rockets at a Physics Society Meeting.

The paper was published in the Smithsonian’s miscellaneous collection and was entitled, “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes.” This collection of essays established Goddard’s claim that he was the first person to provide mathematical proof that it was possible for a rocket to escape Earth’s gravity well.

On January 20, 1929, Fannie Goddard, Robert’s mother died. She had been ill for some time and was tended to by a live in nurse named Jennie Ward Messick. Upon the death of his mother, Goddard was deprived of the two most important women in his life. Later Goddard’s father married his deceased wife’s nurse and Robert was Best Man at their wedding.

During this time Robert Goddard met his future wife, Esther Christine Kisk. Esther was an 18 year old typist at Clark University. She had graduated from South High School the previous spring and was working to save money in order to go to college. Her parents were hard working immigrants from Sweden. Esther, who was very intelligent and also physically striking, went to Bates College where she got straight As in English, French, German, Greek, History and Public Speaking. She later took classes at Clark University where she again achieved top marks in English and German. Esther was also strong willed and is described as having a spunky sort of charm.

The cause of their meeting was simple. Goddard needed a typist and Esther took in typing in order to make some extra money. She described him as being a tall, slender man, in addition to also being kind and gentle. She also remembered that he would sometimes bring a hole punch and often left little bits of paper on the rug. On these visits Goddard sometimes played the piano for her. He also took her for walks and bought her ice cream.

In 1922, Robert and Esther announced their engagement. Esther left her college studies and returned to her typist job in order to save for the wedding. Robert and Esther were married June 21, 1924 in a noon time ceremony at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Worchester.

One of Goddard’s favorite campus events was Sub-freshmen Day. On this day prospective members of next year’s class would come and visit the campus. Goddard would sometimes give demonstrations proving that it was possible for a rocket motor to function in a vacuum. Goddard would place a small pistol loaded with a blank in an evacuataed bell jar and pulled the string, discharging the gun and causing it to swivel around the center post. He would also sometimes quote the 1920 New York Times editorial claiming that this was not possible and said that this demonstrated a common misconception in the public’s understanding of science. Goddard also promised that promised students chose to continue their studies at Clark University would learn better.

Around the same time was Goddard made a full professor starting in the fall of 1920.

Goddard was a tall, thin and stooped man whose patrons were small and benign. Goddard’s major patrons were A Wilmer Duff, Arthur Gordon Webster, and Charles Greely Abbot. With their expertise in applied physics and mathematics and research in everything from electricity to ballistics, these three men would serve as an important sounding for Goddard’s ideas.

The head of the university, Edmund Sandford liked to govern by consensus, however, things began to change as Sandford, and G Stanley Hall, the founder of Clark University’s psychology department, both retired in 1920, to be replaced by Wallace Atwood.

Atwood came from the Department of Geography at Harvard to replace Sandford and Hall. In addition, he also folded Worchester Polytechnic Institute into Clark University. Atwood was also given the sole presidency of both schools. Atwood was described as being a bear of a man with the square face, iron jaw and cold eyes of a Gilded Age Robber Baron, He was also a giant of geomorphology and physical geography, in addition to being one of the last in his field to use the empirical tradition of the 19^th Century. Atwood arrived at Clark with the intention of creating a graduate school for geography. He also gained the reputation of being a dictator, as he once caused a student uprising when he turned down the lights on a guest speaker that he didn’t like. His colleagues described him being a hard, but fair administrator who showed little interest in the students.

At first it appeared that Goddard and Atwood would get along well with each other despite their competing interests. Atwood helped Goddard secure a grant from the Clark Trustees in 1921 and got him a pay raise of $2,500 per year. Further raises would increase Goddard’s salary to $4,000 in 1928. Atwood also made Goddard the head of the physics and math departments after Webster shot himself in May of 1923. However, Goddard was not an effective administrator his near constant absence after 1930 eventually allowed Atwood to kill the graduate physics program.

The first sign of trouble appeared in 1926 when Atwood discovered that Goddard was double dipping the faculty retirement plan. “It appears that we are purchasing an annuity in cooperation with Dr. Goddard for his Estate, but from my records, it appears that Dr. Goddard is covered by the Carnegie Foundation. He was appointed instructor in the fall of 1914 and has been continuously in service since that time.”

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching had established a national plan in 1906 that offered college professors retirement annuities. This plan was intended to replace the Teacher’s Insurance Annuity Association or TIAA in 1918 and encouraged schools to cover their own staffs but continued to support enrolled members. Clark’s plan did not include those already covered and Atwood felt that Goddard was feathering his own nest at expense of the system, but there was nothing the Trustees could do about it. Matters were made worse by the fact that Goddard was indifferent when it came to administrative duties. One such duty of the faculty was to support extra-ciricular activities. In 1920 Goddard organized a “wireless club.” The organization began listening to crystal radios in 1921 and raised enough money to build a broadcast station in 1925, at which point the club started a running licensed radio station. Called WCN, the wireless club broadcast daily with a full time employee also in addition to making experimental broadcasts. Eventually Goddard lost interest in the club and faculty members complained of noise. In addition the members of the wireless club also set fire to the roof of the science building.

Goddard filed seven successful patents between 1914 and 1930 when he left Worchester in the late summer. However, these proved to have little commercial value. In the mean time he filled his notebooks with ideas and formalized these ideas with affidavits that he got by buttonholing faculty members who acted as witnesses. Goddard’s colleagues never understood this obsession. Said one of Goddard’s colleagues, “When the rest of us had something to say, we tried the professional journals, but Bob wanted patents and affidavits instead.”

Goddard’s supposed secretiveness was a legend that arose later. Goddard was not averse to publicity rather he just wanted to convey his message on his own terms. Goddard had been stung by the Haigis-Rockwood Affair, an incident involving the attempted theft of Goddard’s work by fellow rocket researchers CD Hagis and George Rockwood, and took steps to ensure that only he did the talking. He also wanted to ensure that his employees did not speak out of turn. As a result, Goddard insisted upon non-disclosure agreement with the people who assisted him in his experiments. He also required his assistants to sign similar agreements when leaving Goddard’s employment. Conditions of confidentiality agreements have a long past in the history of science and served to prevent students or assistants from stealing or sharing undue credit for their master’s work. Goddard did not defy tradition, in fact he embraced it.

More troubling to his fellow scientists, was the fact that Goddard did not publish his work in scholarly journals and was often said to have been reluctant to make his work available for peer review. Goddard claimed that he had not perfected the details of his design. When he did publish, it was often in popular periodicals, which was considered a grave academic sin in the 1920s. A more modern example of this is seen Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould, both of whom tried to popularize science and were rebuked by their colleagues for their efforts. Goddard also had other reasons for wanting to protect his work, which he felt was threatened by the experiments of the German rocket pioneer Herman Oberth.

Goddard was outraged at Oberth’s claims to have independently invented the liquid fueled rocket. Goddard argued that Oberth had plagiarized his Smithsonian paper from 1919 to 1923. Goddard also wrote a long detailed report that summed up of his all his tests to date, in addition to asserting priority 1899 also refuted Oberth’s claim that Goddard’s design was not capable of reaching orbit and also pointed out that Oberth’s approach was purely theoretical as compared to Goddard’s hands-on tests.

Even before his death in 1945, Goddard and his connection to space flight was seeping into the public consciousness. Robert Goddard was the inspiration for the character Dr. Huer in the Buck Rodgers comic strip ran that ran from 1929 to 1967.

Even without the help of Buck Rodgers, Goddard was a near constant presence in the newspaper. He had been begged by Abbot to stop-spreading around moon shot rumors. Goddard tried but was unable to do so. Sometimes he would claim that his was to reach higher altitudes and often pointed out that former was the first step towards the latter.

In 1927 he told reporters from the Boston Herald that he was nearing of a completion new rocket. In May of the same year the following headline appeared in the Boston Hearld: “Want to be First to Visit the Moon? Apply to Robert Goddard, Clark University.” There was also speculation that Charles Lindbergh would fly Goddard’s moon ship.

At the same time, a German named Valier announced his plans to build a transatlantic passenger rocket. Goddard immediately called the newspapers screaming patent infringement. He claimed that, “This no idle dream, an actual scientific possibility. The idea of combining rocket and airplane is an offshoot of the space rocket on which I have been working for the last eleven years and whose possibilities I saw clearly as early as 1912.”

This incident demonstrates how Goddard came to see rocket research as his private domain and one which had been created exclusively in his boyhood. He also held sole title to claims against patent infringement. It is a testament to the strength of his credibility, however, that he was to able get away with it. This was due in large part to the national press who believed that Goddard was the first and only legitimate rocket scientist. The press also played on Goddard’s viewed of rocket clubs as besiegers.

Goddard found himself to be continually vexed the Germans. He told Abbot in 1927, “I have read carefully the book that has been written in Germany recently on the application of the rocket method to the problem of inter-planetary flight…and in every book disparagement is made of America’s contribution to the subject.”

In the mid-1920s Goddard set out to design a rocket that would at least fly, even if it had no practical value. The first objective was to reduce weight of the rocket to a minimum. Goddard and Henry Sachs, a highly gifted instrument maker on leave from the Bureau of Standards, designed a two inch combustion chamber with a nozzle. They started performing engine tests and began to adjust the flow rates of LOX and gasoline that had now been settled as fuel. Through this process they discovered that too much combustion was occurring outside the chamber in the rocket nozzle and produced a new injection system that included multiple openings to inject the gasoline.

Goddard originally wanted to cover the rocket with a metal skin in addition to a parachute recovery system. He also chose to utilize CO2 tanks in place of his original fuel pumps. Ultimately Goddard scrapped both of these ideas, as he believed that the rocket would still be too heavy. On January 20, 1926 Goddard conducted a static test which succeeded in demonstrating that his design was flyable. To that end he instructed Sachs to build a launch frame made of gas pipe to hold the rocket before launch.

The assembly of the flight model took most of February and the result of Goddard’s work is scarcely recognizable when compared with modern rockets. The most obvious design difference is that Goddard placed his motor placed on top to pull his rocket rather than push it.

On the day of Goddard’s first flight test the scene that existed could described one of typical New England winter beauty. The barn on Aunt Effie’s farm overlooked the launch area from the top of a small rise.

Sachs lit the rocket’s fuse with a blow torch on a long stick, then lit the alcohol burner under the LOX tank and retreated a behind wooden door for shelter. Goddard opened valve that would allow pressurized oxygen from a separate tank to enter the system. The pressurized oxygen forced the gasoline/oxygen mixture into the combustion chamber emitted a small smokeless flame.

Goddard later recorded what happened next. “Even though the release was pulled, the rocket did not rise at first, but the flame came out and there was a steady roar. 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.”

The launch of the first modern rocket was also delayed after its engine had been lit. This delay was caused by the fact the rocket weighed 10 ¼ pounds when full loaded with fuel. As a result it had to burn off the additional weight-before it was light enough to fly. Esther was caught by surprise when her movie camera ran down and before she was able to reach for a still camera, the rocket had completed its 20 second flight and was the on the ground again. As a result no visual record of the actual flight exists.

Goddard would write later: “As a first flight it compares favorably to the Wrights’ first airplane flight, however, which was 120 feet with a height of 10 feet and a time of 12 seconds and the event as demonstrating the first liquid-propelled rocket just as significant.” The date was March 26, 1926.

Written by trlong36

December 9, 2008 at 10:05 pm

Posted in Chapter 2

Tagged with Chapter 2

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Chapter 3: Flying High

Chapter 2: The First Rocket Man

Chapter 1: Toward a Distant Day

Liftoff!

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