He began researching liquid rockets in 1920, and successfully launched the world's first liquid rocket on March 16, 1926, at Ward Farm, Massachusetts. The successful test of Germany's V-2 rocket took place after 1942.
He is the earliest rocket engine inventor in the United States and is recognized as the father of modern rocket technology.
On March 16, 1926, on the snow-covered grasslands of Auburn, Massachusetts, Goddard launched the first liquid rocket in human history. The rocket is about 3.4 meters long, weighs 4.6 kilograms at launch, and has an empty weight of 2.6 kilograms. The flight lasted about 2.5 seconds, with a maximum altitude of 12.5 meters and a flight distance of 56 meters. This was a remarkable success and heralded the birth of modern rocket technology.
On December 30, 1930, a new liquid rocket developed by Goddard was successfully launched. It reached a height of 610 meters, a flight distance of 300 meters, and a flight speed of 800 kilometers per hour, breaking the previous record. rocket flight record.
In 1931, he first adopted the program control system still used in modern rockets in his rocket launch test.
In 1932, he was the first to use a gas rudder to control the flight direction of a rocket. In the same year, the problem of using a gyroscope to control the flight attitude of a rocket was solved for the first time.
In 1935, the liquid rocket developed by Goddard had a maximum range of 20 kilometers and a speed of 1,103 kilometers per hour. It was the first time that a man-made aircraft exceeded the speed of sound.
Goddard *** obtained 214 patents, 83 of which were obtained during his lifetime.
In fact, the United States is where modern rocket technology really started, and Goddard is also recognized as the father of modern rocket technology. After obtaining his doctorate in 1911, he stayed at the school to teach. During this period, he realized that liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen were ideal rocket propellants. In the following years, he became further convinced that his method would definitely send people into space. He proved for the first time in the laboratory that thrust can exist in a vacuum, and was the first to mathematically explore the ratio of the energy and thrust of various fuels, including liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, to their weight.
In 1919, he published the classic paper "Methods of Reaching Extremely High Altitudes", which ushered in the era of space flight and human flight to other planets. He was the first to develop a rocket engine using liquid fuel (liquid oxygen and gasoline). In 1925, in a small room next to his laboratory, a liquid propellant rocket engine was statically tested. In 1926, it successfully carried out the world's first rocket engine. The first flight of a liquid rocket engine. Its significance is just as Goddard said: "Yesterday's dream is indeed today's hope and will also be tomorrow's reality." Goddard's research is extremely short of funds, and the critical public opinion circles have not let this rigorous person go. professor. Reporters from the New York Times laughed at him for not even understanding basic high school physics and fantasizing about traveling to the moon.
They called Goddard "The Moon Man." The public, influenced by the press, also expressed doubts and incomprehension about the scientist's work, but this could not shake the tenacious Goddard. The best thing to do was to go his own way, continue his research, and remain silent about the public reaction, knowing full well that the ridicule would not last. Robert Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He was the eldest son of his family. His younger brother died due to spinal deformity.
As American cities began to use electricity in the 1880s, the young Goddard became interested in science, especially engineering and industrial technology. His father taught him how the carpets in his home could generate static electricity, and Goddard's imagination began to blossom when he was only 5 or 6 years old. Goddard believed he could jump even higher if zinc batteries could somehow store static electricity. Goddard stopped the experiment after his mother warned him that if he succeeded, he would "get out and never come back." He became interested in space after reading Wells's science fiction novel "Star Wars" at the age of 16. On October 19, 1899, he positioned his career on rocket research.
Because Goddard became interested in aerodynamics, he studied some papers published by the American physicist Samuel Langley in the scientific journal "Smithsonian". Langley wrote in these papers that birds use different forces to flap their wings and thus turn in the air.
Inspired by these articles, the teenage Goddard observed how swallows skillfully move their wings to control flight. He pointed out that birds apparently manipulate tail feathers for flight, which he called "avian ailerons." He disagreed with some of Langley's conclusions and wrote a letter to Nicholas magazine in 1901 expressing his own thoughts. But editor St. Nicholas refused to publish Goddard's letter, arguing that birds followed a certain amount of intelligence to fly and "machines don't act on that intelligence." Goddard disagreed, believing that a man could use his intelligence to control a flying machine.
Goddard entered Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1904 and served as a laboratory assistant and instructor. He later joined the SAE fraternity and met high school classmate Miriam Olmstead. He later became engaged to Miriam Olmstead, but they broke up in 1909.
He received his bachelor's degree in physics in 1908, his master's degree from Clark University in 1910, and his doctorate a year later. He became a researcher at Princeton University in 1912, conducting research at the Palmer Physical Laboratory.
While still a student, Goddard wrote a paper proposing a method to "keep an airplane balanced." The ideas he proposed were published in Scientific American in 1907. Goddard later wrote in his diary that he believed the paper was the first time in human history that a method had been proposed to "automatically stabilize an aircraft in flight."
In 1926 Goddard launched the first liquid rocket from Auburn, Massachusetts. The launch site later became an official National Historic Landmark designated by the U.S. government.
On August 10, 1945, Goddard died of throat cancer in Baltimore, Maryland.