3 –n2 – 1 – Liftoff!
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nOnnthis date in 1926, Robert Goddard successfully launched the firstnliquid-fuel-powered rocket.
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nDidnhe get fame and support for his revolutionary invention? Yes!
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nButn he didn’t get a whole lot of support during his lifetime.
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nGoddardnwon the Langley Gold Medal and the Congressional gold medal, and hisnname was honored with a crater on the moon, a high school, and annimportant NASA facility. Goddard has even been honored on a postagenstamp and on the show Star Trek: The Next Generation.
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nButnall these medals and honors came after his death!
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nDuringnthe time when he was pushing the boundaries of space and Earth’snatmosphere with 34 rockets, Goddard was publicized in newspapers butnalso criticized and even ridiculed.
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nEvennthough Goddard was able to secure a position at Clark University innMassachusetts and a sponsorship from the Smithsonian Institution, andneven though his rocket launches were successful, eventually climbingnhigher than a mile (2.6 km) and reaching speeds up to 550 mph (885nkm/h)—even with all of those hints that the guy knew what he wasntalking about, newspaper journalists and the general public scoffednat his far-out ideas.
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Goddardnthought we could send people in a rocket to the moon. Journalistsnlaughed at the idea; they said that, once the rocket traveled out ofnthe Earth’s atmosphere, there would be nothing to “push against.”nOne New York Times editorial sarcastically said that Goddard “only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”nOf course we all know now that the Timesnwas wrong, and Goddard was right—and the day after the successfulnApollo 11 launch, in 1969, 49 years after this sneering editorial wasnpublished, the Times printed “A Correction,” saying that “TheTimes regrets the error.” nn
Goddardnthought we could send people in a rocket to the moon. Journalistsnlaughed at the idea; they said that, once the rocket traveled out ofnthe Earth’s atmosphere, there would be nothing to “push against.”nOne New York Times editorial sarcastically said that Goddard “only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”nOf course we all know now that the Timesnwas wrong, and Goddard was right—and the day after the successfulnApollo 11 launch, in 1969, 49 years after this sneering editorial wasnpublished, the Times printed “A Correction,” saying that “TheTimes regrets the error.” nnn
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nGoddardnshied away from publicity, since his work had been sensationalizednand then mocked, but in private letters he talked about thenpossibility of sending fly-by probes to visit the Moon and planets,nsending messages to possible aliens on inscribed metal plates, the use ofnsolar energy in space, ion propulsion, and an ablative heat shield for landing a spacecraft.
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nEverynone of these ideas has now been realized.
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nHerenare two wise quotes from Goddard:
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n“Everynvision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realized,nit becomes commonplace.”
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n“Itn is not a simple matter to differentiate unsuccessful from successfuln experiments. . . .[Most] work that is finally successful is then result of a series of unsuccessful tests in which difficulties aren gradually eliminated.”
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nAlsonon this date:
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nSt. Urho Day
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Anniversarynof the greatest rainfall in 24 hours
Anniversarynof the greatest rainfall in 24 hoursn
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nFreedomnof Information Day
