100 Years ago Robert Goddard launch first liquid fuel rocket...

We Americans promote Goddard out of a lingering sense of shame and inferiority. There was no native born American “rocket scientist” of the same historical significance as von Braun or Korolev. Goddard was unduly secretive and his research was more of an idiosyncratic dead end than the basis of modern liquid fueled rockets. The rockets themselves probably didn’t perform much better than the naval signal rockets of the era. Or to put it unkindly, if Goddard had lived 100 years earlier, nobody would have been very much surprised or impressed by his rockets compared to the gunpowder rockets of the Napoleonic Wars.
 
TinWing said:
We Americans promote Goddard out of a lingering sense of shame and inferiority. There was no native born American “rocket scientist” of the same historical significance as von Braun or Korolev.
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Wrong, he was the first “rocket scientist” ever, which is more historically important.
His research wasn't dead end and still was the basis of modern liquid fueled rockets. The USA would have been further along had he collaborated. Turbopumps, gyro guidance and jet vanes were his ideas first.
 
TinWing said:
There was no native born American “rocket scientist” of the same historical significance as von Braun or Korolev. Goddard was unduly secretive and his research was more of an idiosyncratic dead end than the basis of modern liquid fueled rockets.
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This is incorrect and while I don't know how much Korolev followed Goddard's research Von Braun is on the record that he and his team played close attention Goddard's research especially in studying his rocket patents, they learned a LOT from Goddard's work.
 
NMaude said:
This is incorrect and while I don't know how much Korolev followed Goddard's research Von Braun is on the record that he and his team played close attention Goddard's research especially in studying his rocket patents, they learned a LOT from Goddard's work.
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There are letters between the Soviet rocket societies and Goddard.
 
Grey Havoc said:
And let us not forget that fiasco where a newly formed NASA under time and other pressures actually stole a number of his patents, thinking that since he was long deceased there wouldn't be any problem.
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A. they did not "steal" them. it was infringement.
B. It had nothing to do with his death,
c. The Air Force, Navy and ABMA were all party to it too. The claim started before NASA was formed.
 
Grey Havoc said:
And let us not forget that fiasco where a newly formed NASA under time and other pressures actually stole a number of his patents, thinking that since he was long deceased there wouldn't be any problem.
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Byeman said:
c. The Air Force, Navy and ABMA were all party to it too. The claim started before NASA was formed.
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Let's put this here for all to see;

In 1951, Goddard's widow and the Guggenheim Foundation jointly filed a patent infringement claim against the U.S. government. In 1960, the government paid $1 million and acquired the rights to more than 200 patents that covered "basic inventions in the field of rockets, guided missiles, and space exploration." NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, which opened in 1959, is named in his honor.
https://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Dictionary/Goddard/DI86.htm
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The settlement, growing out of a patent-infringment claim filed in 1951, was announced jointly today by the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Admin- istration. Under the agreement the Air Force will pay $765,000, the Army, $125,000; the Navy, $10,000, and the space agency, $100,000. The payment will go to the Daniel and Florence Guggen- heim Foundation,
https://www.nytimes.com/1960/08/05/...s-pioneer-us-repays-a-rocketry-pioneer-a.html
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His patents became a major focus. Working with Worcester patent attorney Charles Hawley, she secured 131 of her husband’s 214 patents. She also immediately undertook efforts to secure payment for any damages due from patent infringement, submitting a complaint to the U.S. Army in 1957.
https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/goddardcentennial-legacy/
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In 1957 a claim of patent infringement was made by Mrs. Esther Goddard on behalf of her late husband against the United States Government, specifically regarding the technologies being developed in building the Redstone and Jupiter missiles at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.
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References:
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DISPOSITION FORM DD96, U.S. Army Redstone Arsenal, 1 July, 1957, "Infringement Claim - Mrs. Esther C. Goddard".

[ From an archived image of a Marshall Space Flight Center web page at ]
https://web.archive.org/web/20090326231550/http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/goddard/history.html
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President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 into law on July 29, creating NASA. The agency opened for business on Oct. 1, 1958.
https://www.nasa.gov/history/65-yea...ronautics-and-space-act-of-1958-creates-nasa/
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Justo Miranda said:
The U.S. government did not support Goddard financially, the Russian government did not support Tsiolkovsky, but when the German government supported von Braun... Everyone started to need rockets.
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Not completely true. First, Goddard was very secretive and wouldn't openly work with the US government. During WW 2 ORDCIT and GALCIT became the leading rocketry developers in the US. Goddard labs was asked to join this effort but remained a distant third because to Goddard's reluctance to share his research fully.

Post 14 above shows some of these goings on between Goddard's heirs and the government on this. That was Goddard's downfall. He jealously guarded his research and patents meaning he also was left standing on the sidelines much of the time rather than using his knowledge to expand business and simply produce new research and ideas that made patents exposed to use obsolete.

The US military looked at and saw little value in liquid fuel rockets. They instead had research focused on solid fuels, something Goddard wasn't researching. Thus, von Karman et al., became the leading scientists on US rocketry. In solid fuels, by 1944 the US was easily the world leader. Everybody else didn't really progress beyond nitrocellulose based solid propellants which had limited capacity compared to the perchlorates with asphalt / tar and polysulphide rubber-based propellants the US was using.

The US had researched all the same liquid fuels Germany had but found no viable applications for these having solid fuels that worked for what applications they had. Russia and Britain didn't have the excess capacity to put into rocket research during the war.

Pre-war, the Russians were actually ahead of the Germans and on par with Goddard in liquid fuel research but infighting and Stalin's purges then WW 2 put an end to that research.

http://mentallandscape.com/S_GIRD.htm
 
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TinWing said:
We Americans promote Goddard out of a lingering sense of shame and inferiority. There was no native born American “rocket scientist” of the same historical significance as von Braun or Korolev. Goddard was unduly secretive and his research was more of an idiosyncratic dead end than the basis of modern liquid fueled rockets. The rockets themselves probably didn’t perform much better than the naval signal rockets of the era. Or to put it unkindly, if Goddard had lived 100 years earlier, nobody would have been very much surprised or impressed by his rockets compared to the gunpowder rockets of the Napoleonic Wars.
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I'd put Theodore von Karman on par with von Braun or Korolev for one.

Another is Qian Xusen. He was a Chinese American mathematician and rocket scientist who collaborated with von Karman at GALCIT. Post WW 2, he became suspect in the "Red Scare" era and eventually was deported back to China where he became the founder of China's ballistic missile programs and a hero of the state.

It was one stupid move by the US government based on fear and racism at the time.

https://aerospace.caltech.edu/about...ence and established engineering cybernetics.
 
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Byeman said:
Wrong, he was the first “rocket scientist” ever, which is more historically important.
His research wasn't dead end and still was the basis of modern liquid fueled rockets. The USA would have been further along had he collaborated. Turbopumps, gyro guidance and jet vanes were his ideas first.
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This was Goddard's downfall: Secrecy. He should have made his patents and inventions public and then simply invented new stuff off the money made that rendered his current patents obsolete. As a rule, you can't rest on your current invention(s) because somebody will come along and invent something better using your idea as a starting point.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Another is Qian Xusen. He was a Chinese American mathematician and rocket scientist who collaborated with von Karman at GALCIT. Post WW 2, he became suspect in the "Red Scare" era and eventually was deported back to China where he became the founder of China's ballistic missile programs and a hero of the state.
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The US really, REALLY fucked up big time here with that scientist and how they treated him.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
This was Goddard's downfall: Secrecy. He should have made his patents and inventions public and then simply invented new stuff off the money made that rendered his current patents obsolete. As a rule, you can't rest on your current invention(s) because somebody will come along and invent something better using your idea as a starting point.
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He asked people to come work for him rather than trying to work with them. GALCIT asked him and he declined. Esther lamented after his death "Maybe we should have collaborated".
 
Byeman said:
He asked people to come work for him rather than trying to work with them. GALCIT asked him and he declined. Esther lamented after his death "Maybe we should have collaborated".
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Yep. Goddard fucked up big time. He could have been the US's Werner v. Braun.
NMaude said:
The US really, REALLY fucked up big time here with that scientist and how they treated him.
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No kidding! After he returned to China, he started, with the help of the Chinese Communist Party, to recruit his relatives and associates in the US to come to work with him in China. Xusen almost singlehandedly gave China their ballistic missile program and made it what it is today. He was China's Werner v. Braun and the US gave him to them.
 
Oh my, I totally missed out this date! Thanks for sharing ....
 
Didn't realize that the WAC Corporal flew before the first White Sands V-2.
 
publiusr said:
I imagine there were lots of small solids, perhaps undocumented.

There isn't a lot written about solids between Congreve and RATOs
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Doesn't need to be, they were wereblack powder and nothing has change with that even today (see fireworks and low power model rockets.) or double based smokeless propellant used in munitions.
JPL invented the castable composite solid propellant and that history is well documented.
 

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