![]() By the time the Smithsonian published Goddard’s monograph in 1936, the Germans already had attained a great deal of experience with liquid-fuel rockets. In fact, the German army project had started in 1929, first with solid-fuel rockets, then, by 1931, with potentially far more powerful-and controllable-liquid-fuel rockets. And at no point did they need to copy anything from Goddard. The creators of the V-2 also worked in utmost secrecy. Unlike Goddard’s small projects, the creation of the V-2 required hundreds if not thousands of scientists, engineers, and technicians, representing all kinds of disciplines, from aerodynamics to materials science and thermodynamics. The V-2 was designed for horizontal flight over long distances, and was meant to deliver its ton of explosives as a super weapon. Goddard’s largest rocket was meant only to travel vertically into the upper atmosphere, and was built to be as light as possible. Goddard examining the engine of a V-2 rocket in April 1945.Ĭareful study of the V-2 shows, however, that the German and American rockets could not have been more different. From then on, he strongly suggested that the Germans had stolen his ideas. The following March, a few months before he died, Goddard was able to examine captured V-2 parts. ![]() That weapon first saw action in September 1944, primarily against London. Under the technical direction of a young Wernher von Braun, the center went on to develop what later became known as the V-2 missile, but originally was designated the A-4. ![]() In the same year “Liquid-Propellant Rocket Development” was published (which, incidentally, provided no engineering details), the German army’s sprawling rocket research center at Peenemünde opened. (Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had written about the possibilities of spaceflight earlier, in 1903, but due to language and other problems, his ideas were not known in the West until the mid-1920s.) The worldwide publicity surrounding this idea, with many critics poking fun at Goddard and calling him the “Moon professor,” only made him more guarded in his work. His first publication in 1919, “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes,” dealt only with solid-fuel rockets, although he did dare to include the description of a hypothetical, unmanned, multi-stage rocket that might be able to go to the Moon. It was only in his second rocket publication, “Liquid-Propellant Rocket Development,” published by the Smithsonian in 1936, that he mentioned this flight. How secretive was he? Not only did Goddard make his handyman helpers sign oaths that they would never, on risk of being fired, reveal details of the work they did for him, he kept the facts of his first liquid-fuel flight from the public for a full decade. ![]() Because Goddard was an exceptionally secretive man, his work had less of an impact than a timeline of milestones in rocketry would suggest. Chronologically, anyway, Goddard can be said to have led the way to spaceflight.īut after examining this premise closely over the past few years in the course of doing research for a book on Goddard's technical accomplishments, I’ve come to a different conclusion. ![]() Although he didn’t live long enough to see that dream come true (he died in 1945), German development of the liquid-fueled V-2 rocket during World War II-using the same principles-led directly to the giant Saturn V that launched NASA’s Apollo astronauts. Goddard spent his entire life perfecting the invention he knew could one day be made to fly into space and even reach the Moon. Goddard, the Massachusetts professor who built and flew the world’s first liquid-fuel rocket in 1926. Americans are justifiably proud of Robert H. ![]()
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