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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.03.14 16:39l 82 Lines 4105 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 15469_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Mar 16
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Sent: 140316/1436Z 15469@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.58
Mar 16, 1926:
First liquid-fueled rocket
The first man to give hope to dreams of space travel is American
Robert H. Goddard, who successfully launches the world's first
liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts, on March 16, 1926.
The rocket traveled for 2.5 seconds at a speed of about 60 mph,
reaching an altitude of 41 feet and landing 184 feet away. The
rocket was 10 feet tall, constructed out of thin pipes, and was
fueled by liquid oxygen and gasoline.
The Chinese developed the first military rockets in the early
13th century using gunpowder and probably built firework rockets
at an earlier date. Gunpowder-propelled military rockets appeared
in Europe sometime in the 13th century, and in the 19th century
British engineers made several important advances in early rocket
science. In 1903, an obscure Russian inventor named Konstantin E.
Tsiolkovsky published a treatise on the theoretical problems of
using rocket engines in space, but it was not until Robert
Goddard's work in the 1920s that anyone began to build the
modern, liquid-fueled type of rocket that by the early 1960s
would be launching humans into space.
Goddard, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1882, became
fascinated with the idea of space travel after reading the H.G.
Wells' science fiction novel War of the Worlds in 1898. He began
building gunpowder rockets in 1907 while a student at the
Worcester Polytechnic Institute and continued his rocket
experiments as a physics doctoral student and then physics
professor at Clark University. He was the first to prove that
rockets can propel in an airless vacuum-like space and was also
the first to explore mathematically the energy and thrust
potential of various fuels, including liquid oxygen and liquid
hydrogen. He received U.S. patents for his concepts of a
multistage rocket and a liquid-fueled rocket, and secured grants
from the Smithsonian Institute to continue his research.
In 1919, his classic treatise A Method of Reaching Extreme
Altitudes was published by the Smithsonian. The work outlined his
mathematical theories of rocket propulsion and proposed the
future launching of an unmanned rocket to the moon. The press
picked up on Goddard's moon-rocket proposal and for the most part
ridiculed the scientist's innovative ideas. In January 1920, The
New York Times printed an editorial declaring that Dr. Goddard
"seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools"
because he thought that rocket thrust would be effective beyond
the earth's atmosphere. (Three days before the first Apollo
lunar-landing mission in July 1969, the Times printed a
correction to this editorial.)
In December 1925, Goddard tested a liquid-fueled rocket in the
physics building at Clark University. He wrote that the rocket,
which was secured in a static rack, "operated satisfactorily and
lifted its own weight." On March 16, 1926, Goddard accomplished
the world's first launching of a liquid-fueled rocket from his
Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn.
Goddard continued his innovative rocket work until his death in
1945. His work was recognized by the aviator Charles A.
Lindbergh, who helped secure him a grant from the Guggenheim Fund
for the Promotion of Aeronautics. Using these funds, Goddard set
up a testing ground in Roswell, New Mexico, which operated from
1930 until 1942. During his tenure there, he made 31 successful
flights, including one of a rocket that reached 1.7 miles off the
ground in 22.3 seconds. Meanwhile, while Goddard conducted his
limited tests without official U.S. support, Germany took the
initiative in rocket development and by September 1944 was
launching its V-2 guided missiles against Britain to devastating
effect. During the war, Goddard worked in developing a jet-thrust
booster for a U.S. Navy seaplane. He would not live to see the
major advances in rocketry in the 1950s and '60s that would make
his dreams of space travel a reality. NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is named in his honor.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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