Conference 7.286::space

For people in New England, the Goddard Memorial is in Auburn MA on Route 12 in
front of the Auburn Mall. Exit 10 off the Mass Pike or the Mall exit off route
290. A full size model of his rocket can be seen on the lawn of the library 
there.

    Sorry about the previous, the network dropped me in mid-note.
    
    Re .-2 The Goddard memorial in Auburn MA.
    
    My old alma-mater, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute has a collection of
    Goddard material and is just down Rt 290 from Auburn in Worcester MA.
    There was a large photo montage outside the mechanical engineering lecture
    hall showing one of Goddards later rockets in cutaway, full size.  They
    also had tanks, pumps and so on in glass cases.  I doubt the display is
    still there after all this time but you never know.  If anyone is really
    interested I'd suggest they call the library there. 
    
    (WPI was also known as the Worcester Pyrotechnic Institute; there were
    a number of us rocket freaks there.)
    
    Mike H

My wife and I both went to WhoopieTech in the late 70's too. There was a lot of
Goddard stuff there but you tripped over it all over campus. Never really 
organized into an exhibit. Seems they could put together a pretty good exhibit 
and raise so money from other than "Alumni donations". A lot of the stuff was
stored in the Washburn Shops and in Stratton during renovations. Ah, the good
old days in Morgan Dorm...

I'm sure the WPI library has a better than average collection of his research 
papers for those interested.

    	Milton Lehman's 1963 biography on Goddard, THIS HIGH MAN, was
    reprinted in 1988 by Da Capo Press, New York, with the title ROBERT 
    H. GODDARD: PIONEER OF SPACE RESEARCH, ISBN 0-306-80331-3 (paperback). 

        Anne Perkins Dewey, ROBERT GODDARD: SPACE PIONEER, Little, Brown 
    and Company, Boston, 1962, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 
    62-8309 (hardcover).
    
    	Another book (actually a multi-volume work) on Goddard's work
    is THE PAPERS OF ROBERT H. GODDARD, edited by G. Edward Pendray
    and Esther C. Goddard (his late wife), McGraw-Hill, New York, 1970.
    
    	Larry
    

    	Clark University, also in Worcester, has an exhibit on Goddard
    in the "basement" (ground floor) of the Robert H. Goddard Library.
    It seems that he taught at both Clark and WPI.
    	Incidentally, the Goddard Library is one of the strangest buildings
    you will ever see.  Except for the rare book area and reading room,
    the entire building is basically built one story off the ground,
    appropriately enough, and has various odd protrusions/appendages/
    what-have-you.  We used to call it the Goddard Galactica.  :-)
    
    	Brian W.
    

    	The following is from page 165 of THE SPACE PROGRAM QUIZ AND
    FACT BOOK by Timothy B. Benford and Brian Wilkes, Harper and Row
    Publishers, New York, 1985, ISBN 0-06-096005-1 (paperback, $8.95):
    
    	Q:  Who introduced Lindberg to Goddard?
    
    	A:  One of Goddard's students and a former associate of the
    Wright Brothers:  Edwin Aldrin, Sr., father of our second Moonwalker
    [Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., who landed on the Moon with Neil Armstrong
    in APOLLO 11 on July 20, 1969].
    
    	Larry
    

re:           <<< Note 501.0 by MTWAIN::KLAES "No guts, no Galaxy..." >>>
>                      -< Robert Goddard, Rocket Pioneer >-
.
>    in his aunt's garden.  Today the launch site is commemorated with a 
>    small monument surrounded by a busy street and numerous stores.

Having grown up in that area, would like to comment that the
memorial in front of the library near the now Auburn Mall, is just
that, a memorial.

The actual launch site and another, nicer memorial that is a replica of one of
his early rockets, is in the middle of Pakachoag Golf course, if memory serves
me correctly, between the 3rd and 4th hole.  Toted my father's golf bag
past the memorial many a time beleiving my father's lost ball had some how
followed the long since launched rocket....

Alice

Haven't been in the area for a few years, so don't know if the golf course
and memorial are still there. Would be a shame if they no longer were.

There is also a monument of some sort on Ft Devens, Ma to Robert Goddard.  
Seems he did some testing there too.  If you know where to look you can see 
it in among the trees as you drive down rt 2 east bound.  (Rt 2 goes thru 
the middle of Ft. Devens.)

Rich

    	Yes, Fort Devens is where Goddard was forced to test his rockets
    for a while in 1929, when an earlier test that same year in Worcester
    made such noise that neighbors thought a plane had crashed, and
    called the police and fire department.  After that incident, Goddard
    could no longer launch his rockets in a residential area (a wise
    precaution), and he had to test them at Hell Pond in Fort Devens
    (back then it was called Camp Devens), a desolate artillery range.
    
    	Goddard didn't stay there long, as Charles Lindberg helped to
    finance his tests out in Roswell, New Mexico, and Goddard worked
    there until his death in 1945.  Ironically, the place he launched
    his rockets in was called Eden Valley.
    
        BTW, do you (or anyone) know how to get direct access to the
    Goddard monument at Devens?  And what does look like and say?
    
    	Larry                                                    
    

RE:< Note 501.10 by MTWAIN::KLAES "N = R*fgfpneflfifaL" >
    
>        BTW, do you (or anyone) know how to get direct access to the
>    Goddard monument at Devens?  And what does look like and say?
    
My memory is really vague at this point.  If we were in a car, I could take you 
there.  It's certainly accessable from in the base.  Closest entrance is 
Jackson gate on Rt 2.  If I remember corrctly it was at the end of a narrow 
blacktop road.  A simple concrete marker with a 20' high gantry that looked 
like the base of one of those radio/tv towers that some homes have was all 
that was there.  It may be gone now or it may have been enhanced.  It's 
existance wasn't even well known on the base.

Rich

From: [email protected] (Andrew Higgins)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Robert Goddard question
Date: 9 Aug 89 02:43:59 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
 
    In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (N.
L. Sliker) writes: 

> I heard recently that Robert Goddard invented the rocket in 1914, though his
> early theories were published in 1919.  Does anyone have any idea when would
> be a good "anniversary day" for the idea or source for more information?
 
    Goddard considered his own "anniversary day" as October 19, 1899,
when, at the the age of seventeen, he decided to devote his life to
the attainment of space exploration. 
 
    Other important Goddard dates are:
 
October 5, 1882:    Robert Goddard born
 
December 28, 1909:  Goddard writes a summary of twenty-six methods "involving
                    means in space" including aero-braking, solar thermal and
                    solar electric propulsion, gravitational assists, and the
                    production of fuel on the lunar surface.
 
July 7, 1914:	    Goddard is issued patent No. 1,102,653 which covered the
                    essentials of rocket propulsion.
 
December 17, 1918:  Goddard submits "Results on a Method of Reaching Extreme
                    Altitudes" to Smithsonian Institution.
 
March 16, 1926:     Robert Goddard launches first liquid-propellant rocket.
--
 Andrew J. Higgins	          |     Illini Space Development Society
 [email protected]              |     a chapter of the National Space Society
 phone: (217) 359-0056/333-1608   |     at the University of Illinois
          P.O. Box 2255 - Station A, Champaign, IL  61825

 "The ability of man to walk and actually live on other worlds has virtually
  assured mankind immortality."	- Wernher von Braun

    	On this date in 1882, Robert Goddard was born.  On October 4, 1857,
    Konstantin Tsilkovsky, the Soviet founder of modern rocketry, was born
    exactly one hundred years to the day when SPUTNIK 1 was launched.
    
    	Larry
                                             

    	On this date (March 16) in 1926, Robert Goddard launched the 
    first liquid-fueled rocket - the ancestor to most of today's modern
    boosters - from his Aunt Effie's property in Auburn, Massachusetts.  
    The flight lasted no more than 2.5 seconds and sailed only a dozen
    meters (41 feet) into the air, but it was more than enough to change 
    our future.
    
    	Larry
                                                                       

    re. .10 :  access to Ft. Devens Goddard Memorial
    
    	1. Get to the Hospital.
    	2. Leave the hospital heading west - the direction the parking lot
    		starts you at (don't do a U turn back towards the golf
    		course).
    	3. About 1/4 mile up the road (golf course on your right) a road
    		joins from your left - make a sharp left turn onto this
    		road. (This road runs parrallel and, in places, close to,
    		Rt. 2.)
	4. Go down the hill. About 1/4 mile from the turn there is a gravel
    		road on the right with a tiny sign that says "Goddard Memoral"
    		on it. Go down the gravel road about 500' to the memorial.
    
    	(I once led a bicycle club ride to the memorial.) - Chris

Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Goddard Trophy ceremony planned at White House (Forwarded)
Date: 19 Mar 90 16:55:40 GMT
Reply-To: [email protected] (Peter E. Yee)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
 
David Garrett
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                March 16, 1990
  
    RELEASE:  90-42
 
    GODDARD TROPHY CEREMONY PLANNED AT WHITE HOUSE
  
     Vice President Dan Quayle, in a special White House ceremony on
March 19, will make a special presentation of the Dr. Robert H.
Goddard Memorial Trophy to the 1990 winner Dr. Lew Allen, Director of
the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Vice
President of the California Institute of Technology. 
 
     Dr. Allen received the 1990 award "For distinguished and
significant contributions to the Nation's advancement in space,
earlier by service with the Air Force and the strategic defense of 
the country, and currently by leadership with NASA in the assurance 
of United States preeminence in planetary exploration." 
 
     The Goddard Trophy, premier award of the National Space Club and
the aerospace industry, was established in 1958 and is presented each
year at the Goddard Memorial Dinner.  The recipient of this award is
selected annually by the Board of Governors of the National Space Club. 

    	On this date, October 5, Robert Goddard was born in Massachusetts
    in 1882.
    
    	Larry
    

    	Saturday, March 16, marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of Robert
    Goddard's launching of the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, the
    ancestor of all modern liquid-fueled booster.  The flight took place
    in Auburn, Massachusetts (near Worcester) and lasted only 2 seconds.
    
    	Larry
    

    Re:.18
    
    Larry,
    	I know that you and I have had this conversation before but...
    
    While Goddard may have been the first to launch a liquid fueled rocket
    and the first to develop many important systems that such rockets need,
    this rocket and Goddard's work can hardly be classified as "the
    ancestor of all modern liquid-fueled boosters". If one can view the
    family lineage of all modern rockets, not a single one can be traced
    directly or indirectly to Goddard's rockets. His branch of the rocket
    family tree died when he died leaving no offspring. This is primarily
    because of Goddard's highly secretive nature which developed as a
    result of the taunting he got from the press back in the 1920s. If
    there is one true ancestor to all of today's modern rockets it would
    more likely be von Braun's A-1 (the ancestor of the V-2) or one of his
    earlier prototypes. Virtually all Soviet launch vehicles (especially
    the A, C, and G class launchers) and American launch vehicles (especially
    the Saturn, Thor/Delta, and Juno families) can be directly traced back
    to von Braun's early work.
    	While Goddard's work definitely deserves a place in history because
    of its technical brillance and many firsts, its ultimate influence on the 
    development of rocket technology in the middle part of this century is, 
    IMHO, at best minimal and at worst highly over rated. Sorry Larry :-)
    
    
    				Drew
    

  I saw a special on Goddard's rocket on TV once. They claimed that it was very
similar to the V2 in the way it was built and the way it worked. I don't
believe they thought there was any connection between the projects but they
implied that there are certain obvious design decisions that designers of
simple liquid rocket are likely to make. 

  By the same token, I'm not sure if there is any direct link from the Wright
brothers bicycle shop to any major modern aircraft manufacturer. Is there
a company something like Wright/Patterson that does aircraft work? Are they
descended from the builders of the original Flyer?

  George

*                     <<< Note 501.20 by PAXVAX::MAIEWSKI >>>
*
*  I saw a special on Goddard's rocket on TV once. They claimed that it was very
*similar to the V2 in the way it was built and the way it worked. I don't

When I was a kid in elementary school I read a book about Robert Goddard's life
wherein the author mentioned Goddard's being laughed at by the US War Department
when he proposed using rockets are military devices.

After that it mentioned him receiving letters with lots of questions from
German scientists.

    	On this date, October 5, in 1882, Robert H. Goddard was born in
    Worcester, Mass.  In 1926, he launched the world's first liquid-fueled
    rocket in Auburn. Mass.
    
    	Larry
    

Article: 81187
From: [email protected] (Marc Brett)
Newsgroups: alt.journalism,soc.history,sci.space,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Gotham Rag Touts Martians!
Date: 12 Jan 1994 10:59:00 GMT
Organization: Western Geophysical, Div. of Western Atlas Int'l, Houston, TX
 
    From the fortune files:
 
    "As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the
highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's
rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device.  It is when
one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon
that one begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and
really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated
nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have
left.  Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and
countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the
relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something
better than a vacuum against which to react ... Of course he only
seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."

                -- New York Times Editorial, 1920
 
--
[email protected]
Western Geophysical

    Re. -1
    
    [From the Time-Life recording "To The Moon"]
    
    In July 1969, shortly before the first moon landing, the New York
    Times, realizing the error of its 1920 editorial, printed the following
    retraction:
    
    "It is now definitely established that a rocket *can* function in a
      vacuum.
    
     The Times regrets the error."
    
    Oh, well - better late than never, I guess ..... ;)
    
    						--Eric--
    

        The Disney Channel will air "A Moon Man from Massachusetts:
    The Robert Goddard Story" on Tuesday, July 12, at 9 p.m. EDT.