The Star Sailors

 

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.