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From: nemo@rochester.UUCP (Wolfe)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Robert Goddard
Message-ID: <14463@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Jan-86 09:26:48 EST
Article-I.D.: rocheste.14463
Posted: Fri Jan 10 09:26:48 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jan-86 01:07:39 EST
References: <354@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Reply-To: nemo@rochester.UUCP (Richard Newman-Wolfe)
Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
Lines: 46
Summary: more history

In article <354@decwrl.DEC.COM> paulhus@euclid.DEC (N. CHRIS PAULHUS DTN 223-6871 MLO8-3/T13) writes:
>	W. Von Braun vs. Robert Goddard
>  ...(von Braun) said that they had done nothing new, that they had just
>  implemented the work of the American rocket pioneer, Robert Goddard. The
>  scientists asked, who is this Goddard?!
>    I took this tale with a grain of salt until I finally visited the new
>  Air and Space Museum.  There, next to the familiar engine-above-fuel-
>  tanks-below first rocket of Goddard's was his latest model (1938 I think).
>  What an incredible achievement! Gyro inertial guidance, gimbled motor,
>  turbo-pumps for propellants, and (I believe) fuel cooling of some
>  components.  Look at a V-2 and it's the same level of technology, just
>  a bit different (much less than an order of magnitude delta) scale.
Equally amazing is that many of the components he used were "off-the-shelf".
Shows how fast development can progress on how miniscule a budget when you
go that route.  His fuel valves were fire hose valves, eg.  
>    Goddard made his first flights in Auburn, MA.  After some problems there,
>  (I think he set something on fire) he started using a launch site in
>  Harvard, MA, now (then?) on Fort Devens, about a mile from where I now
>  live.  (He rapidly outgrew this site and moved to [White Sands?].)  The
>  Harvard site has a small monument and a tiny sign on a little used road
>  on Fort Devens. I'd bet less than 100 people visit it a year.  
>    I wonder if Goddard will ever get the respect that he deserves from the
>  space community?
>	- N. Chris Paulhus, DEC - Maynard
He certainly get very little from the government.  He invented the bazooka
at the end of WWI (solid propellant rocket).  During WWII he was engaged in
research on jet-assisted take-off (JATO), the primary allied use of jets
being to get over-loaded bombers off the ground.  The government didn't
ever let him do what he really wanted.

As a child he was interested in space flight - he expressed his plan to get
to the moon by scuffing his shoes on the carpet until he built up enough 
charge to blast him there.  His mom asked him how he planned to get back,
without carpets on the moon, and he abandoned that method of attack.  I
think he was voted class nerd in high school.  But he persevered, doing
much on his own and the rest with the help of wife and dedicated friends.
Imagine what he could have done with an NSF grant!

Nemo
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