Robert Hutchings Goddard (Goddard Robert Hutchings)

1882, 5 October - the birth of Robert Goddard Hitchings in the small town of Worcester (Massachusetts). The town, located 55 kilometers from the capital of Massachusetts Boston and from the Atlantic coast, was very developed, industrially and culturally. At the time of the birth of Robert Goddard, he has 60 thousand. residents, and in 1940 - 200 thousand.

Childhood and school years, Robert held in Boston, the capital of New England, one of the largest centers of economy and culture of the U.S., literally packed with industrial enterprises, scientific institutes, laboratories and libraries.

Father, Robert, Nahum D. Goddard grew up in a poor family of a retired military, married Fanny-Louise Hoyt, the daughter of his master, the owner of a small industrial firm. Having inherited the firm, gradually became a successful businessman. However, the actual owner of the house was an old woman, mother, father. She brought up Robert.

In his autobiography, written in 1927, Goddard noted that in 4-5 years it woke experimenter. The first object of research - electrical discharges from the friction of various items of home carpet. In the 12-year old wakes up real passion for izobretatetelstvu. The first design - an incubator for frogs (not entirely successfully arranged, but the execution is quite as scientifically-based system).

1897 - Goddard decided to build a balloon unchanged form - from aluminum sheet. At home, he gets out of aluminum ingot sheet thickness of 0,3 mm, from which then makes a sealed volume in the form of pillows. The container was filled with hydrogen, but not off.

1898

Winter - Goddard is fond of "space novel by HG Wells and his American interpreters and imitators. His interests are more and more inclined toward the problem of interplanetary flights.
Goddard began a diary. He does this then throughout life.
July 17 - diary entry: "... launched fire crackers and the usual. The evening - rockets, Roman candles, red lights, etc. ".
July 4 - Goddard launches rockets a day (after all, Independence Day, USA!), And made his own. Other items of his self-study in the school years: the physiology of the ear and the eye (at one time, Robert wants to become a physician), . bows and arrows with various tips and tails, . receiving artificial diamonds (experiment ended in an explosion detonating gas),
.
July - Goddard graduated from high school in Boston and arrives there in the highest English school.
1899, summer - a return to his native Worcester. It just opened on South Graduate School of favorite Goddard physics as the main subject (as opposed to "algebraic" Boston).

In his autobiography, and several other records Goddard exact dates the beginning of its space interests - October 19, 1899. The diary is written that Goddard "in the evening cut branches of a large cherry tree, located in the garden behind the house".

On this day, sitting on a cherry, he clearly felt in his dream of flying to Mars!

1899-1901 - kidney disease. Goddard is forced to interrupt their studies. He is engaged in self-education - a lot of reading, using the local library.

1901

March - Goddard's letter to Harvard University to set out the idea of photographing device luminous objects in different parts of the light spectrum. Goddard's first appeal for a patent!
March 7 - Goddard response from the patent office, "Mann and Co.. Patent Goddard has not received, but the idea is considered correct in principle the. For this period of life characterized by very Goddard search - interesting problems in science and its place in it.
small article "Moving in Space" (an analysis of the ability to run a shell in space with guns, meteorite hazard).
1904 - graduating from high school in Worcester. In recent years, studies Goddard enjoys radio technology, astronomy, questions of interference of light and sound and artificial radioactivity.

1904 - 1908 - in the same training at the Polytechnic Institute. Goddard is engaged in research in the field of charged particles, the study of the nature of electrical conduction, the problem of high-speed ground transportation.

1906 - the beginning of research opportunities using the reaction of charged particles to move in space. Instituted the famous "green notebooks". Before this, in 1905, summarizing the first results of its scientific and inventive activities, Goddard reveals "a set of models are unable to work and a set of unworkable ideas". He burns all his notes in the oven. But new ideas all the same he born, and Goddard resume writing. He concludes that even in the unrealistic idea there is always something over which should reflect. Were purchased several thick notebooks with numbered pages in a green cover.

1907

June - the first publication of Goddard in the journal "Scientific American Supplement". "Using a gyroscope to stabilize and upravleniya airplanes". The fee - $ 10. Article reprinted magazine Vusterovskogo Polytechnic Institute

. October - work "On the possibility of moving in interplanetary space, where the ideas:
. - The means of maintaining life in space
. - Meteorite danger and struggle with her
. - Reactive way traffic on the energy powder
. - The possibility of the decay energy of the atom to move in space
. During this period, Goddard makes a lot of valuable ideas
. Chief among them:
. - Use of Earth's magnetic field for space flight
. - Creation of reactive power due to the electrostatic effect for the motion of the apparatus in space
. - Conducting photo shoots the moon and Mars with obletnyh trajectories
. - Sending a charge of lighting the powder on the surface of the moon (to prove the real achievement of its surface)
. - Production on the Moon of oxygen and hydrogen for use as fuel
. Many of his ideas later implemented in practice (at the very Goddard - 214 patents), which shows a great creative talent and ability in engineering foresight
.

August - Goddard receives a "curve speed, corresponding to the minimum air resistance during the passage through the atmosphere"
1908 June - end of the Polytechnic Institute, Bachelor. Immediately Goddard goes to Clark University in Worcester. Lectures on Physics at the University (one time - Nobel Laureate in Physics for 1908 Ernest Rutherford) Goddard listens, still studying at the institute. For school-age physics was his favorite subject, he himself was engaged in physical problems. Goddard decided to elect their final profession of physics.

Simultaneously Goddard teaches at the Polytechnic Institute. With Vince Clarke's University, he binds his fate for a long time. C 1914 to 1943 Goddard will teach it.

By the 20 th years of Vince Clarke's University will enter the list of 100 leading U.S. universities.

The University Goddard attended lectures of eminent scientists - A. Michelson (Nobel Prize 1907), A. Webster (later the supervisor Goddard in many papers), R. Wood, V. Volterra and other.

1909

- Secondary summarizing the scientific activities. At this time, Goddard has to its credit 26 questions developed.
- Calculations on the use of rockets for space flight and the use of different types of fuel (powder and vodorodnokislorodnogo)
1910 - Goddard defends work on "Theory of Diffraction". Degree of Master of Arts. For a year he remained in post-graduate university.

1911 June - Goddard defended his thesis on "Electrical conduction through contact of solids". Ph.D.. He left for another year at the university for the completion of studies.

1912 - 1913 - Goddard was invited to one academic year in Palmerovskuyu Laboratory at Princeton University - the oldest and one of the largest scientific and educational centers in the country. Development of the theory of the rocket. There he gets a brilliant result of the experiment to obtain a driving force of the insulator in a magnetic field by passing it through his current high frequency. Sam Henrik Lorenz, author of the classical theory of dielectrics, doubted the possibility of such a phenomenon!..

1913

March - a serious disease (pulmonary tuberculosis). Goddard returns to Worcester.
September-October - Goddard, despite the state of health, makes the Article "Moving into interplanetary space". Must be said that Goddard over the years has published many of his works under the same or almost under the same name. The same method has been and publications have Tsiolkovsky! And this is not the only coincidence of their creative handwriting. Historians of science have discovered a striking coincidence sequence of scientific and engineering ideas that had come to both researchers!..
1914

April - doctors allowed Goddard from autumn to return to teaching. He was again invited to Princeton, but Goddard is Vince Clarke in the university, although his teaching salary here (500 USD per year) is twice less than it was in Princeton. Goddard feels even matter. Three hours a week, he reads the course of electricity and magnetism and one hour teaches classes in the laboratory
. 7 and 14 July - U.S. patents on the design of multiple rockets with conical nozzles and missiles with a continuous combustion in two versions:
. - With a consistent supply of combustion of powder charges
. - Pumping stations two-component liquid fuel
. In themselves these ideas do not belong to the priority Goddard - liquid propellant rockets for space flight and the withdrawal of the rocket equation Tsiolkovsky proposed in 1903
. But this was a concrete embodiment of engineering and the first patent obtained Goddard!
. 1915

. February 1 - Goddard's report at the Polytechnic Institute, entitled "New methods of achieving greater heights"
. May - assistant professor (1125 USD per year)
. - Ctendovye experiments with solid-fuel missiles and rocket cameras
. Experiments to determine the rate of discharge in vacuum.
- Difficult to prove the existence of the experience (and lack of decrease) thrust rocket engine in a vacuum.
1916 - appeal for financial support from the Smithsonian University in Washington, one of the largest research centers in the U.S., inferior unless Harvard University. Princeton University, and especially Vince Clarke, who possessed more modest means, could not help it. It was necessary to find an organization which would combine a direct interest in missiles and sufficient to finance their development.

Statements Goddard in U.S. military since 1914, results not given - despite some success practical demonstration of samples of products the military is too slow to respond to specific.

Cmitsonovsky University allocates Goddard grant of 5 000 USD from the Hodgkins Fund of the establishment of an experimental multiple warhead missiles. At the same time put forward two conditions:

. - Close contact with Dr. Charles Abbot (Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory of the University, a prominent scientist in the field of solar physics) and Edward Buckingham, well-known physicist of the Bureau of Standards

. - Annual and as the outcome of the proceedings and the costs

. 1917

. January 8 - Goddard receives the first check for missile development - 1 000 USD
. March - Goddard begins to experiment in the laboratory of the Polytechnic Institute, which was announced in the institute, and later in the evening newspapers Worchestershire
. c 1917 - design developments in the field of solid-fuel missiles of various types, including multiple warhead missiles of pulse combustion (idea NI
. Kibalchicha, 1881!).
1918 November - test of this missile (not too successful). The three-year attempt to create a workable design.

1920

- A Ph.D..
January - the fundamental work of Goddard, "The results of theoretical and experimental studies 1912-16 gg."
1920, 1923, 1924, 1929 - Reports on Space.

1921 - Goddard moves to experiments with liquid rocket engines (oxidizer - liquid oxygen, combustible - various hydrocarbons). In his theoretical works he has repeatedly pointed out the advantages of liquid rocket engines.

1922 March - the first launch of rocket engines on the stand.

1926, March 16 - Auburn (Mass.) - successful launch of missiles with a simple pressurized supply (fuel - petrol, oxidizer - liquid oxygen). Starting weight - 4.2 kg, reached the height - 12.5 m, range - 56 m. Dawn of the space age, had arisen over the Earth in 1903 with the work of Tsiolkovsky "Investigation of outer space rocket appliances" Allow "luminary" of the early practice of space!

. 1929 June - the world's first rocket with instruments and a camera on board
. Starting weight - 25.7 kg. Height - 28 meters. Devices after landing accident should not have!

Goddard receives major financial support to the Guggenheim Foundation and equip a small ground with a workshop near Roswell (New Mexico).

1930 - Goddard rocket reaches a height of 600 meters with a maximum speed of 800 km / sec. Starting weight - 21 kg, the length of the rocket - 3.4 m).

Later Goddard deals with stabilization of vertical flight. It uses gyroscopic controlled steering wheels in the stream of flowing gas, and later adds aerodynamic control surfaces). And this idea in the beginning of the twentieth century was put forward by Tsiolkovsky, Goddard and again - the first who carried it out in practice.

1932, April 19 - the first flight of the rocket with girorulyami.

1935

March - the same missile reaches a height of 1.5 km, with a range of 4 km (weight - 60 kg).
May - the height of 2.3 km with good stabilization.
1937 March - maximum rise missiles Goddard - 2.8 miles.

1938 - Goddard concludes that exhaustion (he thought) missiles with a capacity of pressurized fuel supply and moves to the development of turbo systems.

It creates a very sophisticated turbine, gas generator and centrifugal pumps, but has no success in launching.

1942 - Goddard hired by the U.S. Navy. Only with the beginning of the Second World War and the emergence of the American military leadership, data on achievements in the field of rocket technology in Germany, Goddard's work attracted the attention of military.

Up until his death in 1945, Goddard manages the creation of rocket engines for acceleration of the aircraft. His position - head of research at the Bureau of Aeronautics.

While rocketry in the United States still has not received adequate support. Personality traits of the American pioneer in this space have played a not insignificant role. Goddard is seeking to address individually all the arising problems, shuns the limelight of his work, and rejects any attempts to co. He believes (in the words of one of his contemporaries), rocketry, his fiefdom, as all others in her work - poachers.

Goddard's self-isolation was compounded by persistence of the American press, attributed to him the creation of "moon rocket" with the "exact date of launch - July 4, 1924". This was interpreted by only a few theoretical considerations raised Goddard about the possibilities of spaceflight.

And when (after the death of Goddard) in 1946 in the United States raised the issue of early major missile development, was based on Germany by Werner von Braun's rocket - the A-4 (V-2 ").