Robert H. Goddard - Roswell, New Mexico

Roswell, New Mexico

With new financial backing, Goddard eventually relocated to Roswell, New Mexico, in 1930, where he worked with his team of technicians in near-isolation and secrecy for a dozen years. Here they would not endanger anyone, would not be bothered by the curious, and experienced a more moderate climate (which was also better for Goddard's health).

By September 1931, his rockets had the now familiar appearance of a smooth casing with tail-fins. He began experimenting with gyroscopic guidance, and made an unsuccessful flight-test of such a system in April 1932. A gyroscope mounted on gimbals electrically controlled steering vanes in the exhaust, similar to the system used by the German V-2 over 10 years later.

A temporary loss of funding from the Guggenheims forced Goddard to return to Clark University until 1934, when funding resumed. Upon his return to Roswell, he began work on his A series of rockets 4 to 4.5 meters long, powered by gasoline and liquid oxygen pressurized with nitrogen. The gyroscopic control system was housed in the middle of the rocket, between the propellant tanks. On March 28, 1935, the A-5 successfully flew to an altitude of 1.46 kilometers (0.91 mi; 4,800 ft) using his guidance system. This rocket also achieved supersonic velocity.

In 1936–1939, Goddard began work on the K and L series rockets, which were much more massive and designed to reach very high altitude. This work was plagued by trouble with engine burn-through. In 1923, Goddard had built a regeneratively cooled engine, which circulated liquid oxygen around the outside of the combustion chamber, but now deemed the idea too complicated. He was instead using fuel curtain cooling, which involved spraying excess gasoline on the inside wall of the combustion chamber, but this was not working well, and the larger rockets failed. Returning to a smaller design again, the L-13 reached an altitude of 2.7 kilometers (1.7 mi; 8,900 ft), the highest of any of Goddard's rockets. Weight was reduced by using thin-walled fuel tanks wound with high-tensile-strength wire.

From 1940 to 1941, work was done on the P series of rockets, which used propellant turbopumps (also powered by gasoline and liquid oxygen). Higher fuel pressure permitted a more powerful engine, but two launches both ended in crashes after reaching an altitude of only a few hundred feet. The turbopumps worked well, however.

Goddard was able to flight-test many of his rockets, but many resulted in what the uninitiated would call failures, usually resulting from engine malfunction or loss of control. Goddard did not consider them failures, however, because he felt that he always learned something from a test. Most of his work involved static tests, which are a standard procedure today, before a flight-test. Between 1930 and 1945, the following 31 rockets were launched:

Date	Type	Altitude in feet	Altitude in metres	Flight duration	Notes
December 30, 1930	Goddard 4	2000	610	unknown	record altitude
September 29, 1931	Goddard 4	180	55	9.6 s
October 13, 1931	Goddard 4	1700	520	unknown
October 27, 1931	Goddard 4	1330	410	unknown
April 19, 1932	-	135	41	5 s
February 16, 1935	A series	650	200	unknown
March 8, 1935	A series	1000	300	12 s
March 28, 1935	A series	4800	1460	20 s	record altitude
May 31, 1935	A series	7500	2300	unknown	record altitude
June 25, 1935	A series	120	37	10 s
July 12, 1935	A series	6600	2000	14 s
October 29, 1935	A series	4000	1220	12 s
July 31, 1936	L series, Section A	200	60	5 s
October 3, 1936	L-A	200	60	5 s
November 7, 1936	L-A	200	60	unknown
December 18, 1936	L series, Section B	3	1	unknown	Veered horizontally immediately after launch
February 1, 1937	L-B	1870	570	20.5 s
February 27, 1937	L-B	1500	460	20 s
March 26, 1937	L-B	8000-9000	2500–2700	22.3 s	Highest altitude achieved
April 22, 1937	L-B	6560	2000	21.5 s
May 19, 1937	L-B	3250	990	29.5 s
July 28, 1937	L-series, Section C	2055	630	28 s
August 26, 1937	L-C	2000	600	unknown
November 24, 1937	L-C	100	30	unknown
March 6, 1938	L-C	525	160	unknown
March 17, 1938	L-C	2170	660	15 s
April 20, 1938	L-C	4215	1260	25.3 s
May 26, 1938	L-C	140	40	unknown
August 9, 1938	L-C	4920 (visual) 3294 (barograph)	1500 1000	unknown
August 9, 1940	P-series, Section C	300	90	unknown
May 8, 1941	P-C	250	80	unknown

As an instrument for "reaching extreme altitudes", Goddard's rockets were not very successful; they did not achieve an altitude greater than 2.7 km (in 1937), at a time when airplanes could reach up to 15 km and balloons 22 km. By contrast, German rocket scientists had already achieved an altitude of 3.5 km with the A-2 rocket (in 1934), reached 12 km by 1939 with the A-5 and 84 km in 1942 with the A-4 (V-2), reaching the outer limits of the atmosphere.

Goddard's pace was slower than the Germans' because he did not have the resources they did. But he was trying to perfect his rocket and the subsystems such as guidance and control so that it could achieve high altitudes without tumbling in the rare atmosphere, providing a stable vehicle for the experiments it would eventually carry. He was on the verge of building larger rockets to reach "extreme altitudes" when World War II intervened and changed the path of American history.

Although Goddard brought his work in rocketry to the attention of the United States Army, he was rebuffed, since the Army largely failed to grasp the military application of large rockets. German military intelligence, by contrast, had once paid attention to Goddard's work. An accredited military attaché to the US, Friedrich von Boetticher, sent a four-page report in 1936, and the spy Gustav Guellich sent a mixture of facts and made-up information, claiming to have visited Roswell and witnessed a launch. Guellich's reports did include information about fuel mixtures and the important concept of fuel-curtain cooling, but thereafter the Germans received very little information about Goddard.

The Soviet NKVD had a spy in the U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. In 1935, she gave them a report Goddard had written for the Navy in 1933. It contained results of tests and flights and suggestions for military uses of his rockets. The NKVD considered this to be very valuable information. It provided few design details, but gave the Soviets the direction and progress of Goddard's work.

Don't you know about your own rocket pioneer? Dr. Goddard was ahead of us all.

“ ” Wernher von Braun, when asked about Goddard's work following World War II