Robert H. Goddard
Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945) was an American professor, physicist and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, which he successfully launched on March 16, 1926. Goddard and his team launched 34 rockets between 1926 and 1941, achieving altitudes as high as 2.6 km (1.6 mi) and speeds as high as 885 km/h (550 mph).
Goddard's work as both theorist and engineer anticipated many of the developments that were to make spaceflight possible. Two of Goddard's 214 patents — one for a multi-stage rocket design (1914), and another for a liquid-fuel rocket design (1914) — are regarded as important milestones toward spaceflight. His 1919 monograph A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes is considered one of the classic texts of 20th-century rocket science. Goddard successfully applied three-axis control, gyroscopes and steerable thrust to rockets, all of which allow them to be controlled effectively in flight.
Goddard received little public support for his research during his lifetime. Although his work in the field was revolutionary, he was sometimes ridiculed in the press for his theories concerning spaceflight. As a result, he became protective of his privacy and his work. Years after his death, at the dawn of the Space Age, he came to be recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry. He was the first not only to recognize the scientific potential of missiles and space travel but also to bring about the design and construction of the rockets needed to implement those ideas.
Read more about Robert H. Goddard: Early Life and Inspiration, Education and Early Studies, First Patents, Mid-to-late 1910s, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, First Liquid-fueled Flight, Lindbergh and Goddard, Roswell, New Mexico, Goddard's Secrecy, Patent Settlement, Legacy, Private Life, Quotations, Timeline, Patents of Interest
Famous quotes containing the words robert and/or goddard:
“Of the wheel as it rolls unrelentingly over
A cow plodding through car-traffic on a street in Iasi,
And over the haunts of Robert Pinsky’s mother and father
And wife and children and his sweet self”
—Robert Pinsky (b. 1940)
“There is no mystery in a looking glass until someone looks into it. Then, though it remains the same glass, it presents a different face to each man who holds it in front of him. The same is true of a work of art. It has no proper existence as art until someone is reflected in it—and no two will ever be reflected in the same way. However much we all see in common in such a work, at the center we behold a fragment of our own soul, and the greater the art the greater the fragment.”
—Harold C. Goddard (1878–1950)