GODDARD, Robert Hutchings
(1882–1945), American rocket engineer, born in Worcester, Mass.,
and educated at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Clark University.
From 1909 to 1943 Goddard taught physics at various institutions,
including Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Princeton and Clark universities.
His interest in rocketry began in childhood, and in 1919 he published
a short book, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, proposing
a rocket that might reach the moon. In 1923 he tested the first
rocket engines to utilize liquid fuel; previously only solid fuels
had been used. In 1926 he launched the first liquid-fuel rocket,
using a mixture of gasoline and liquid oxygen. In 1929 he sent up
the first instrument-carrying rocket, which bore a barometer, a
thermometer, and a small camera. From 1930 to 1942, with the aid
of a Guggenheim Foundation grant, he worked in New Mexico. His experiments
included the construction of rockets that reached a velocity of
885 km/hr (550 mph) and heights of up to 2 km (1.5 mi);
and he accumulated more than 200 patents related to rocketry. During
World War II for two years he was director of research for the Bureau
of Aeronautics of the U.S. Department of the Navy, and for the last
two years of his life he served as a consulting engineer for the
Curtiss-Wright Corp., aircraft manufacturers.
His work, although almost ignored in his own country during
his lifetime, was basic to the weaponry developed by German rocket
engineers during the 1930s and World War II, and virtually laid
the foundation for contemporary space exploration.