When Robert Goddard read New York's "Times" magazine on January 13, 1920, he was not happy. For some time he had been worried about becoming a fading figure in the newspapers, but when he picked up the paper that day, he was stunned. The newspaper reported: "Not long ago, at Clark University in Westchester, Massachusetts, Professor Goddard of Physics published an essay with an impassioned title and harsh wording. Goddard believed that Rocketry is a viable technology, and the purpose of his article, too seriously titled "A Way to Reach Extreme Altitudes," is to prove this point. Something that piqued interest, but by all accounts, the taciturn professor opened up a bit. He believed that if you use his technology to build a rocket big enough, and if you start it with a fuel that is powerful enough. rocket, and you might follow it to the moon.”
Godard’s plan for lunar meditation was extremely naive at the time, but Time magazine discovered it and clung to it. Start writing articles to accuse. As people know, the article explains with an editorial eye that space travel is impossible because the rocket would not be able to move even an inch without the atmosphere to propel it. Professor Goddard obviously lacks the knowledge to learn in a high school.
Goddard was angry. Not because the editors misunderstood the science, or because they didn't care about his work, but because they recognized him as a fool. You can make irresponsible remarks about a scientist's research, but when you blame the scientist, you must be more careful. That day, Goddard - the man who would eventually be called the father of modern rocketry - began to sulk; this sulk lasted for a quarter of a century, and he never got out of it. This sullen life produced some of the most brilliant and dazzling achievements of his time.
Goddard was born in 1882 and was working on rockets before he became an adult. As a child he had an instinctive feel for all gunpowder techniques. He was intrigued by the powerful gunpowder that fueled firecrackers and strings of explosives (TNT). He knew that if he could figure out ways to control the power of those chemical explosions, people would be able to make some flights that were fun to explode.
As an academic and professor, first at the Institute of Multitechnics in Wesest and later at Clark University, Goddard worked hard to calculate this method of control. He calculated propulsive forces and worked out the energy-to-weight ratios of different fuels. By studying sealed capsules, he discovered that rockets could actually fly in a vacuum, thanks to Newton's laws of action and reaction. The most important thing he learned during his experiments in basic chemistry was that if you wanted to launch a missile extremely far, you should never use the poor black powder that had long been used as rocket material. Instead, he would need something with powerful propulsion power—a liquid like castor oil, or liquefied hydrogen mixed with liquefied oxygen to make the explosion happen in the airless environment of space. Filling the missile with this fuel, one can make the black gunpowder retreat far away.
Goddard's theory stayed in the theoretical stage for nearly 20 years. When he built a rocket and moved it to a field, the rocket didn't go anywhere at all. Back at Clark University, he always had a failed rocket on hand, and a colleague used to greet him with this question: "Hey, Robert, how is your rocket to the moon?" When he strengthened, In publishing his work, Time magazine wanted him to do something he didn't want to do.
Finally, everything changed. On March 16, 1926, Goddard built a thin 10-foot-long rocket, which he named "Nell." He loaded "Nelle" into a convertible and drove it to a farm near his aunt Effie's home. He set up the rocket in the field, then asked an assistant to light the fuse with a torch fixed to a long wooden pole. For a moment, the rocket didn't move at all, then suddenly it leapt from the ground, roaring into the sky at 60 miles an hour, climbing to a height of 41 feet.
Then the rocket arced past, plummeted to the ground, and whizzed into a frozen vegetable patch 184 feet away. The entire flight lasted just 2.5 seconds, but was longer than any previous liquid-fuel rocket had managed to fly.
Goddard was shaking with excitement at his victory, but he decided to say less. If people thought he was stupid when he was just designing the rocket, who knows what they would say when the rocket actually started flying? When word of the launch finally leaked out, inquiries poured in at Clark University. Goddard replied grimly to everyone: "Work in progress, no comment." As he completed each new round of research, he would deliberately mislead people's questions - such as "the recipe for silvering mirrors" "Show it to others so that the research results don't fall into the wrong hands.
But the rocket was difficult to hide, and Goddard's "Nair" got bigger and bigger, and it was finally discovered by the people of Westester. In 1929, an 11-foot rocket caused chaos and the police were called. Where there are police, there is inevitably news. The next day, the local newspaper's front-page headline read: Moon rocket missed target by 238,799.5 miles. It was clear to Goddard that the East Coast was an increasingly untenable place. In 1930, financier Harry Gargenhem promised to allocate US$300,000. Goddard and his wife Esther headed west to Roswell, New Mexico, where the land was vast and the weather was convenient for launching rockets. And they were told that local residents were interested in their cause.
In the empty, scorching scrubland of the West, the passionate Goddard secretly pushed his career to prosperity. Over the next nine-plus years, his Nairs climbed from 12 feet to 16 feet to 18 feet, then from 2,000 feet to 3,500 feet to 9,000 feet. Not only did he build a rocket that exceeded the speed of sound, he also built a rocket that was balanced with a vertical tail. He patented dozens of patents on everything from gyroscopic navigation systems to multi-range rockets.
But by the late 1930s, Goddard was in trouble. He found that among all the countries interested in rocket technology, one country - Germany, was the most interested. From time to time, German engineers approached him with a technical problem or two, and he responded nonchalantly. But in 1939, the Germans suddenly fell silent. Goddard became increasingly anxious about what Germany was preparing for, so he called Army officials in Washington and brought a number of different Nell tapes. He let the generals watch the launch in silence for a few moments, then turned to face them. "We can skew it a little bit," he said simply, "and do damage." The officer smiled kindly at the missile expert, thanked him for his time and sent him on his way. However, the missile expert clearly knew what he was talking about. Five years later, several of Germany's first murderous V-2 rockets ignited and exploded toward London. By 1945, more than 1,100 such rockets rained down on the nearly destroyed city.
After being snubbed by the Army, Goddard did not study rocket technology during World War II, but instead tested aircraft engines for the Navy. Once the war was over, he quickly returned to the work he loved. Because he got the first batch of commercial orders, he hoped to get in touch with the trophy V-2 rocket. He had already heard that the missile resembled his more modest Nell rocket. Goddard believed that interactions with German scientists had given Berlin an opportunity to at least glimpse what he had designed. In addition, by 1945, he had applied for more than 200 patents, all of which are searchable. When a captured German scientist was asked about the origins of the V-2 rocket, he reportedly responded: "Why don't you ask your own Dr. Goddard? He knows more than any of us." When some V-2 rockets finally arrived in the United States, Goddard had the opportunity to thoroughly examine one rocket, and he immediately recognized his own masterpiece. "Isn't this your rocket?" an assistant asked as they inspected all its internal parts. Goddard replied calmly: "It seems so.
Goddard admitted to being the father of his "illegitimate son" the V-2 rocket, which became the last rocket he was born with as a father. In 1945, he was found to have throat cancer. , he passed away before the year was over. But his technological eggs did not stop incubating. American scientists worked together with German scientists who moved out of Germany to collaborate on Godard's innovation of the V-2 rocket. This murderous missile became the Red Stone, which launched the first Americans into space. The Red Stone led directly to the creation of the Saturn satellite rocket, and indeed indirectly. The launch of every other rocket launched in the United States
Although Goddard lost sight of it at all, the credit should go to him, and all the more to a man who so despised the news. It’s important to make corrections. After Apollo 11 took off and humans landed on the moon for the first time, New York’s Time magazine looked back blankly on a 1969 review it published 49 years ago. The article said: “Further investigations and experiments confirmed Isaac Newton’s findings. It is now certain that rockets can operate in a vacuum as well as in the atmosphere. Time magazine apologizes for its past mistakes. The stern-faced Professor Goddard may not have been able to appreciate the humor, but he may have almost certainly accepted the apology.