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75 Years Ago, Goddard Launchs Space Age

Posted by Hemos on from the to-the-moon-alice dept.

karmma writes "The Boston Globe noted in this story that the space age began 75 years ago today with the launching of a rocket by Robert Goddard on a farm in Worcester, Mass. " I've been told by a couple people that it's actually Auburn, MA - I think they are right.

13 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The legacy of Goddard, and the future. by euroderf · · Score: 3

    Well, you could try the X-Prize team listings. Quite a few amateurish efforts listed there.
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  2. The legacy of Goddard, and the future. by euroderf · · Score: 5
    This shows that Amateurism has a place in space exploration. Back in the 30's, people were driven by pure ideals. Robert Goddard created a marvellous milestone in our century off his own back.

    Later came the power politics of the 60's and 70's. The great achievements of that era, like Armstrong walking on the moon in '69, were soured by the terrible emotions and motives that underlay them. If only space exploration had remained an amateur effort, we may have got much farther, in a spiritual sense as well in a technical one.

    The problem with the power politics, and the death struggles of Nations that lay beneath, is that it has made us impotent. We no longer believe that amateur space exploration is possible.

    Well, the simple fact is that it can be done. Spirited men, untainted by cruel ideaologies, can go forth and challenge our conceptual ideas with needing taxpayers money or approval from Senatorial commissions. Right now, as we speak, people in England, France America and Japan are planning this very thing.

    Later shall come the commercial interests, and they will up the scale and challenge even more fronteirs, but in the cold hearted interests of profit and influence.

    All these different interests, the amateur, the Government and the corporation, are driven by prestige. But nationalism has no place in space exploration, and nor does profit seeking. The status seeking and curiosity of the private individual is what we want to encourage.

    Do we, as a race, have the guts and imagination to pull this through? I hope so, but sometimes it seems that we just don't have the balls :/
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  3. Re:Goddard was a racist by volsung · · Score: 5
    Yes, yes. And Jefferson had slaves, and Heisenberg was probably a Nazi-supporter. Minimizing people who were racist doesn't change the fact that they might have made a significant contribution to history. In fact, distorting your view of history (as you alude to in your comment about "wise historians") in order to say less about such people is not much different than the Nazis trying to write Jews out of the history books.

    I too am sad that brilliant people like Goddard and Heisenberg supported the Nazis. But that doesn't change the fact that Goddard was influential to American rocketry, and that Heisenberg was pivotal in the creation of Quantum Mechanics.

    (And to those of you in the audience: Before you YHBT YHL HAND me, I realize this might be a troll. At the same time, there are a lot of people in History and English at the college level who think like this poster.)

  4. Funny how the real cool inventions are ignored by drenehtsral · · Score: 4

    They ignored Tesla when he said that alternating current was the way to go, and gave edison all the recognition for bringing electricity to the public, even though he tried and failed to do it with DC, and Tesla's proposed AC system ended up being the key. This is another case where the inventer of a cool technology is for the most part ignored. Society tends to do that. It seems to happen a lot too. I wonder what will be remembered and forgotten about our current computer technology and it's creators...

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    Play Six Pack Man. I
  5. goddard in astro pic of the day by po_boy · · Score: 4

    That's why today's astronomy picture of the day features Robdrt Goddard and one of his funky looking rockets.

    All your event are belong to us.

  6. Robert Goddard, a lousy father. by NReitzel · · Score: 3

    Robert Goddard had a good idea, but he held it close to himself and absolutely refused to look at work being done elsewhere. Over the years after his first attempts, he continued to make attempts to get his little candle to work, while others who had a slightly less vapid case of NIH (not invented here) were dropping explosives on London, a couple tons at a time.

    He was a selfish, egotistical mean little man, and his attitude resulted in his being remembered for his funny little rocket that almost would.

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    Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.

  7. Goddard's Pendulum Rocket Fallacy by Baldrson · · Score: 4
    A rather entertaining fallacy to which Goddard's early designs "fell" was the pendulum rocket fallacy.

    Also, the web site for the Goddard archives at Clark University has this FAQ that is worth reviewing.

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    Seastead this.
  8. Goddard was a bad scientist by mr.+roboto · · Score: 3
    Goddard's early work in rocketry was impressive, but he insisted on keeping it secret. Though he launched the first liquid fuel rocket in 1926, the results of his work were kept under wraps until Winkler launched his rocket in 1931, forcing Goddard to chime in if he wanted to get the credit for being first. His contributions could have made a much larger impact on the development of rocketry if he had been willing to collaborate.


    This, of course, is a good example of the weakness of the proprietary world view espoused by Goddard and his like. Note those 200-some patents he filed in his lifetime. That paradigm might have worked for an inventor like Edison, who worked on numerous small projects, but it fails for more complex science, like rocketry (or large-scale software development).

  9. If we tried to build rockets today... by nels_tomlinson · · Score: 3
    An amateur rocket builder today would be arrested as a terrorist as soon as he tried to buy the oxidiser... After making bail for this, he'd be arrested again for disturbing the peace, and launching a rocket without a permit. Finally, the neighbors would sue for violating the covenants in the subdivision. Seriously, the world is a very different place, and trying to do something like what Goddard did could land you in a lot of trouble, even if you were behaving responsibly.


    A good friend of mine told me a story about when he was a teenager, between WWII and the Korean war. He was visiting a distant cousin who lived on a farm. The two teenagers spent a morning drinking beer and trying to dig a stump out of the ground. Finally, the cousin's father sent my friend into town to buy a case of dynamite at the hardware store. My friend was a stranger in town. The only question the store clerk asked was "Do you need some blasting caps with that?"


    This happened less than 50 years ago. If a strange, tipsy teenager tried to buy dynamite today, what kind of reaction do you think he'd get? How long would it take to get him out of jail? The world has changed for the worse, and it has changed recently. That's the point I want to make with this little story: a lot of the bad things we take for granted today are very recent developments.


    I don't think that anyone would want to go back to the world of 50 years ago, in which Jim Crow laws were accepted, but the changes between then and now weren't all for the better. Remember Billy the Kid? He's famous because he was so unusual then. He wouldn't stand out the same way today.

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    See what I've been reading.
  10. Dr. Goddard's Highest Flight by mr_gerbik · · Score: 4

    I don't know if anyone is curious, but the article sparked the question for me: How successful were Goddard's launches? I found the following info here in Goddard FAQ.

    Which of Dr. Goddard's rockets flew the highest?
    Dr. Goddard launched rocket L-13 on March 26, 1937 and the peak altitude that it reached was approximately 1.7 miles off of the ground in 22.3 seconds. By comparison, his first rocket, which he launched on March 16, 1926, reached an altitude of only 41 feet and landed 184 feet away 2.5 seconds after it was launched.

  11. Pah! by gowen · · Score: 4

    Goddards early rocket flights were faked. I saw it on the FOX network.

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    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  12. Rocket age by Rubyflame · · Score: 5

    That's rocket age. Not space age. The space age began in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik.

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    All it takes is nukes and nerves.
  13. Hmmm.... by canning · · Score: 3
    He earned 241 patents.

    Today all are owned by obscure companies suing NASA for big bucks. Every satelite launch buys them another Malibu beach house. :)

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    I love the smell of Karma in the morning