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Space Science

75 Years Ago, Goddard Launchs Space Age 121

Posted by Hemos 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.
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75 Years Ago, Goddard Launchs Space Age More

75 Years Ago, Goddard Launchs Space Age

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  • wait! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I thought the Russians starting the the 'space age' thing?

  • Goddard (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Useless information, I know.. But I live near where Goddard did his research. On the Worcester Airport Road there is a Goddard Park or something like that but it's been "under development" for about 6 years. So far they have a sign and that's about it.

  • I'm excited about the future (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sure, those first 75 years were ok...but what I really yearn for is the experiences awaiting those who are out there, say, 100 years from now...oh, to be able to pilot a 'ZIG' through the vast reaches of outer space, in pursiut of the evil CATS, representing great justice (!!). Just try to imagine what it would be like, having been set up you the bomb, potentially belonging your base to THEM, seemingly on your way to destruction.. knowing all along that, when faced with litle chance to survive, you just gotta make your time.

    That's what exsites me about the future of the Space Age and Goddard [aol.com] and what he meant to it, and all that. SO: do I get my lap dance now???

  • Re:I know how I shall honor this (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    damn, Larry's got SUPER SPERM!!!

  • Re:The legacy of Goddard, and the future. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You obviously were not around in '69. The emotions and motives surrounding the program were not terrible or soured. Its sad to see that the likes of jamie and slashdotters have corrupted your mind to believe that anything done in the US is bad. You have to realize that competion is not a bad thing, and the motives for the landing was part of what made it great. The emotion of the landing was amazing, something that cannot be easily described. NATIONALISM IS NOT ALWAYS A BAD THING.

    Regardless of the economic of political system of the country, the individual does not have the ability of resources to do anything. Governments and corperations are the only groups that have the drive and ability to do anything important in space.

    One day you will grow up, and see that your view of the world is far more ignorant than that of the average person.

    Please do not moderate me because you do not agree with me.
  • Not by me! Every day I bow to my shrine of a naked Bill Joy and "kiss the buddha". I've taken to converting neighborhood childern to my ways, so that Bill Joy is not forgotten after I pass away. (I find that they generally are receptive, all though a few kids only come over for the beer and cigarettes.)

  • Yes, what an amateur (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That's why he registered 200 patents on rocket technology.

  • Re:How do yanks pronounce Worcester? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Heh, I'm from Worcester and have lived in MA all my life so I have the whole Wusstah accent going. It's almost like a Boston accent but some of the stresses are in different places. A cah is still a cah, but you listen to music through speekahs. I think it also depends on where in Worcester you're from. The uppity jews near Doherity High don't seem to have the accent but the middle class/working class normal folks do.

  • I never cease to be amazed by moronic comments such as this. "It wasn't. The US lost the race when Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space on April 12, 1961, orbiting the Earth for 108 minutes in Vostok 1."

    Rubbish, pure and simple. Of course Americans trumpet Armstrong. Of course Russians extol Gagarin. Both achieved - mostly through the efforts of others - great things.

    The correct answer to the question "Did the US or the USSR win the space wars?" is no.

    What effect did this competition have on the world today? In advancing the competing ideologies, it had none whatsoever. It might have at the time, in the long run it had none. Everyone - or no one, depending on one's point of view - benefitted from the space race.

    Saying "The US lost the race when Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space on April 12, 1961, orbiting the Earth for 108 minutes in Vostok 1." is as stupid and simplistic as saying that the US won it because the US put the first man on the moon.

  • Re:The legacy of Goddard, and the future. (Score:3)

    by euroderf ( 47 ) <a@b.c> on Friday March 16, 2001 @02:19PM (#358655) Journal
    Well, you could try the X-Prize team listings. Quite a few amateurish efforts listed there [xprize.org].
    --

  • The legacy of Goddard, and the future. (Score:5)

    by euroderf ( 47 ) <a@b.c> on Friday March 16, 2001 @01:56PM (#358656) Journal
    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 :/
    --

  • Back in the 30's, people were driven by pure ideals.

    I suspect people have always been driven by the same things: love, greed, altruism, hate, curiosity, fear, hunger, lust, etc. I certainly don't think these motivations have changed in the last century.

  • I started doing some research on whether Goddard had any influence on von Braun. I didn't find anything conclusive either way, but I did find out that the character Dr. Strangelove is apparently a parody of Wernher von Braun. I guess people were generally suspicious of a former Nazi all of the sudden working for the U.S.
  • I think the occasional spasms where Dr. Strangelove starts doing the Nazi hand thing make it pretty clear that the guy is supposed to be an ex-Nazi. (And one who hasn't changed much.)
  • The source I found said 1500 rockets were fired and 2500 people were killed.
  • Nop, this is not a troll but a very sound comment.

    Just to clarify, I was actually wondering out loud if the parent of my original post was a troll. I didn't state that very clearly. I only say this because I personally get tired of people who point out that their own posts might be trolls, or that the moderator might think that they are trolls. It's some weird reverse-psychology on the moderators, I think, and it annoys me.

    Anyway, that really has little to with your response.

  • Re:Goddard was a racist (Score:5)

    by volsung ( 378 ) <stan@mtrr.org> on Friday March 16, 2001 @02:27PM (#358662)
    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.)

  • To me what matters is not their motivations, but their accomplishments. The fact that when 1957 began no human had ever gone into outer space, and when 1969 ended 2 humans had landed on the moon, is simply astonishing. And where are we now? Still using that 25 year old scrap heap called the Space Shuttle, with no prospect of stopping any time in the near future.

    I think with proper funding, we could easily have a colony on Mars by now. But as I see it at this point there are only two hopes:
    1) private industry setting up space hotels for the rich, and eventually bringing the cost down significantly
    2) China. if China soon sends a man into space, and then appears ready to go to the Moon and/or Mars, it may finally get our government willing to shell out some bucks to get us there first - just like the 60s.
  • Goddard launched from Auburn, MA just outside of Worcester. If you are driving on the Mass. Pike, and know just where to look, you can see the stop, which has a monument.

    After being stung by the press with their nasty dismissal of his first experiments, he was secretive for the rest of his life. I wonder if the denizens of slashdot would have treated him any better.

  • Re:Pah! (Score:2)

    by "Zow" ( 6449 )

    Okay - I just want to know who the moderator was that said this was informative.

    I have to admit, it's a (5, Funny) though.

    -"Zow"

  • "It is difficult to say what is impossible; for the dreams of yesterday are the hopes of today and the reality of tomorrow"


    -
  • Jews (the race, not the religion) are decendants of Judah, a son of Israel née Jacob and great-grandson of Abraham. Judaism (the religion, not the race) did not really begin until after the tribe of Judah was separated from the rest of the tribes of Israel when they were taken captive to Assyria by Shalmaneser in 721 B.C. although the essential elements if Judaism pre-date this separation and are common to some other religions.
  • Space Age really started in the Nazi fields of Pennemunde. Sad to say this but it is a fact. It was a V2 the first rocket to reach the edge of Space and boost the interest of nations for it. The limit of near 150 kilometers was reached in 1942. Truly Nazis were only able to produce a ballistic orbit. Besides they were only worried about such orbits. One German general who risked to suggest the development of V2s to reach circular near-earth orbits was arrested for treason...

    However it is extraordinary that Goddard's homeland didn't seriously cared for his works. It was only after the war and by taking a few german scientists, that the US started its serious rocket program. Yes, US tried to reach Space by progress was slow and had miserable support (the first planned US satellite was the size of an apple)

    Russia managed to get three steps in front of the US. And why? Because it had already a rocket program that started in the 30's. It also got its piece of Pennemunde's treasures (in fact Pennemunde stayed in soviet occupied territory). And the most illarious was that USSR got first to Space because... The A-bomb was heavier than the US one! Recently one Russian scientist noted that this was one of the main factors that gave a boost to Soviet Space program. They had to plan and build rockets more powerful than the US because of the weight of the A-bomb. And when the question came to launch the Sputnik, their tasks were much more easier to solve because they had the powerful R-7 already in place.
  • Ok let's go to the extremes:
    Man on the Moon??? Tell me that America exists... Do you really believe the the USA exists? That they have Coca-Cola, Highways, and Space Shuttles? Look Coke is nothing more than burned sugar. Anyone can do this. Highways? They can film that on Germany. Space Shuttle? Cool, look at Japan's technological powers. They can simulate that! and even have the money for it!

    Ohhhhhh!!!! There is the dollar... I heard it is mainly produced here...
  • That's rocket age. Not space age. The space age began in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik.
    Nah, the ROCKET AGE began some 2000+ years ago, when some hapless Chinese fucked-up rolling his firecracker; an end was loose, and the rapidly burning gases managed to propel the thing away, probably scaring a couple of horses, or better yet, the mother-in-law in the process.

    Perhaps you mean the LIQUID-FUELED ROCKET AGE? Well, no luck either, because it is totally meaningless, given that the largest payloads launched today (including the Space Shuttle) are launched in part by SOLID-FUELED rockets...

    --

  • ...but it fails for more complex science, like rocketry (or large-scale software development).
    You mean to say that large-scale software development isn't rocket science?

    --

  • I too am sad that brilliant people like Goddard and Heisenberg supported the Nazis.
    Sheesh. How about Wernher Von-Braun???

    (Invited to the same TV show as Von-Braun, Isaac Asimov refused to shake a hand that shook Hitler's...)

    --

  • ALmost halfway back to the first rockets,
    Kubrick and Clarke made the 2001 movie.
    Halfway back the APollo program was in full swing.
    Not a whole lot of progress since then,
    considering most of Kubrick's technology is feasable.
  • It was 1969 and were several trips to the moon starting with Apollo 11

  • 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...
  • Where did us geeks go wrong?

    I don't think the geeks did go wrong. You have to look at why we went to the moon. It was a competition. "We had to beat the Russians!" It was sort of a Olympics for geeks, to help releave or take public view away from the cold war. So I think you have to look at the general US interest and the policical machine to lay fault. IMHO.
  • Henry Ford invented the automobile. And the wheel was invented by an American as well.

    Do people really believe this stuff? American patriotism scares me.

    Anyway, that had to be said. You may now moderate me down and continue to rewrite history.
  • "As a newly converted Jew, I am hurt by the continuous slander of our people..."

    Your people, eh? What were they before you converted? I think I'll become a Muslim tomorrow then they'll be my people. And then I can complain about the centuries of oppression my people have suffered. And after I get bored of being a Muslim, I'll try out Hinduism so I can be one of them.

    I can't decide if this was a subtle troll of if you're just a complete jackass.
  • I was trolled. Fuck me [goatse.cx].
  • The success of the 1950's and 60's in rocket science can be attributed to vast outlays of capital more than fundamental advancement of the state of the art. If space travel and colonization were as important to the world today as it was then we would have already journeyed to Mars and would be well on our way to establishing permanent colonies on the moon.

    It is difficult to guess how history will judge an age while an observer is still in it. That said, at least some historians now believe that the space progress 1960's will be remembered as an anomoly due to national pride and the cold war rather than a fundamental change in the nature and speed of human technological progress.
  • I agree with you 100 percent about the space shuttle. If the government worked that way, they should just take the money spent on the shuttle program and invest it to save enough to do something interesting from both human and scientific perspectives.

    Unfortunately government doesn't work that way and any extra money will be spent on free lampshades for the poor or a tax cut aimed at the rich.

    I also would like to see space exploration taken seriously, but I do not want it done in the name of jingoistic "national pride."
  • woostah

    dont ask me how or why.
  • I never cease to be amazed by those from the USA that seem to thin Neil Armstrong walking on the moon was the crowing achievement in the long an arduous race between the US and the USSR, whre the US emerged triumphant.

    It wasn't. The US lost the race when Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space on April 12, 1961, orbiting the Earth for 108 minutes in Vostok 1.

  • goddard in astro pic of the day (Score:4)

    by po_boy ( 69692 ) on Friday March 16, 2001 @01:51PM (#358684)
    That's why today's astronomy picture of the day [nasa.gov] features Robdrt Goddard and one of his funky looking rockets.

    All your event [openschedule.org] are belong to us.

  • Robert Goddard, a lousy father. (Score:3)

    by NReitzel ( 77941 ) on Friday March 16, 2001 @02:27PM (#358685) Homepage
    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.
  • Just because something is a religion doesn't mean it has no genetic correlations [csulb.edu]. And hypocrisy is a very human trait that is selected for genetically so long as people can use tricks to avoid being called on it -- like aggressively calling anyone who would do so an "antisemite" or a "nazi" and then defining "antidefamation" to consist of such aggressive slander/libel.
  • It is interesting that both Lindberg and Goddard were funded by the same Jew (Guggenheim), both were pioneers (if not heros) of aerospace and both are accused of being "antisemites" and having their reputations trashed because of it long after their deaths.
  • Goddard was quite the Anti-Semitist and (later became a) Nazi apologist, frequently being quoted as saying that American science was being held back by a massive Jewish conspiracy and that prominent Jewish scientists of the time stole the works of others and had no place in mathematics or science.

    Greenwald, A. G., & Schuh, E. S. (1994) "An ethnic bias in scientific citations" European Journal of Social Psychology 24623-639 demonstrates a pattern of ethnic discrimination in scientific citations whereby Jewish authors were 40 percent more likely to cite Jewish authors than were non-Jewish authors. Jewish first authors of scientific papers were also approximately three times more likely to have Jewish coauthors than were non-Jewish first authors. Although the methods used in the study did not allow determination of the direction of discrimination, the findings reported throughout this volume strongly suggest that a large proportion of the discrimination originates with Jewish scientists.

    MacDonald, K. "Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements" p 216 [csulb.edu]

  • Goddard's Pendulum Rocket Fallacy (Score:4)

    by Baldrson ( 78598 ) on Friday March 16, 2001 @03:25PM (#358689) Homepage Journal
    A rather entertaining fallacy to which Goddard's early designs "fell" was the pendulum rocket fallacy [geocities.com].

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

  • Living in Worcester? You have my condolences... I went to WPI (on who's campus Goddard blew up a couple of rockets, and a chemistry building if rumors are to be believed).
  • Man... When it's said like that, it's incredible. Just think of the leaps and bounds that have been made in only 75 years. A single trip to the moon, where we have not been back yet, no trips to Mars, our closest celestial neighbor...

    Really, what has happened? We started out with a bang! A trip to the Moon in 1968, and then what? Absolutely nothing. Incredible. Where did us geeks go wrong? Did we not try hard enough to convince the "suits" that our causes were good enough?

    I was expecting a trip to Jupiter by now (2001, doncha know?) It's sad. I was looking forward to a vacation on the moon.

    ------
    That's just the way it is

  • Goddard was a bad scientist (Score:3)

    by mr. roboto ( 85479 ) on Friday March 16, 2001 @02:37PM (#358692)
    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).

  • I am not based on just von Braun! Exactly who Kubrick had in mind when he made Dr. Strangelove is not known, but the most likely candidates are von Braun (minor), Henry Kissinger (who wrote a paper on nuclear war in those days) and, of course, Edward Teller, a major influence.

  • Saying "The US lost the race when Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space on April 12, 1961, orbiting the Earth for 108 minutes in Vostok 1." is as stupid and simplistic as saying that the US won it because the US put the first man on the moon.

    Not exactly, it depends on what race you're talking about. The race to get into space was most definitely won by the Soviets. As this race is what most people consider to be the most important part of the Space Race as a whole, you could argue they won the race. You'd be wrong of course, the real answer is, the race is still going. It all depends where you set your goals and for some reason ;-) the Americans consider the Moon to be one of the more important ones.

  • All i can say is as a ex-resident of worcester and ex-con i mean student of clark university is yes he launched the rocket in Arburn Mass, not worcester, but he did teach at at Clark University which is in worcester. to commemerate Goddard they built this god-awfull statue named after him in the main square of the school. it's unofficially been named the goddard phalace, i'll leave it to your all's imigination to guess what the statue looks like (hint: it's tall, shiny and silver). they prbably got a picture of it on the clark home page, sorry can't be bothered to try to navigate their site.

    other notable embarrassments in clark u. history - it's the first place that freud spoke in the US. but that's another story....

  • >> That's why he registered 200 patents on rocket technology. <<

    Did he get any signif money for them?
  • >> That's why he registered 200 patents on rocket technology. <<

    One-click rocketry.

    I wonder if the military patented one-click nukes (a single red button).
  • I think your link changes each day. Try this one instead:

    http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010316.html

    Anyhow, his pictured rocket looks suspiciously like coat-hangers and tampons. Perhaps he was driven by an odd fetish.

    (Just speculation people. It happens.)
  • ....and others later come along and add gasoline to an idea.

    It often takes multiple heads and personalities to get things right.

    Stubburness has its place.
  • Why is this moderated Informative? Shouldn't it be Funny?

    wait, he said he saw it on Fox, so it must be true!


  • I remember one first poster that linked to a program where you can post to slashdot via this program. Why would someone want to waste valuable programming energy to do such a silly task of getting first post. I've done first post myself a while back, and I did it the old way, by luck that a fresh article got posted. I'll also admit that when the article ran about one of the original developers for Unix quitting, I had moderator access at the time, and modded up the FP because I thought it was funny. Several others did the same.

  • If we tried to build rockets today... (Score:3)

    by nels_tomlinson ( 106413 ) on Friday March 16, 2001 @06:19PM (#358702) Homepage
    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.

  • For example, his first liquid-fueled rocket flew 40 feet high, but also 184 feet to the side
    Not bad for a first attempt. Saying that that's a failure would be like comparing Linus' first (pre-pre-pre release) Linux kernel to 2.4. It's almost trivial to do better now-- with the hindsight of his (and others') experimentation, failures and successes. About the only thinf he wwould have had to work off of would have been the solid-rockets of chinese and civil war technology. -- kinda like trying to build a 4-stroke engine, based on the early steam engines..... It's better than nothing -- but not by much.
    --
  • Not liquid-fuel rockets, which is what Goddard pioneered.
  • 4 years ago, Slashdot started becoming a major contributor to the English language going to hell in a handbasket (what the hell does that mean anyway?).

    Slashdot needs a real editor.

  • shall we disown all that they accomplished?

    With some of the legislation that's been passing recently (copyright extension, UCITA, DMCA etc), it seems as if that's exactly what you're government is trying to achieve.

    Rich

  • until Winkler launched his rocket in 1931

    And who would have believed that he'd later go on to play "The Fonz" opposite Ron Howard?

    Rich

  • Of course, the US *would* put that kind of a spin on it. They were fierce competitors with the USSR after all.

    The best way to look at it as that they were important milestones along the road. Unfortunately, it looks like we've all turned around and gone home and now just peak out the window from time to time.

    Rich

  • Hey, my government was founded on the basis that if you're rich and have lots of big swords, you can do whatever you want to the peasants. So it's not like it's hard to live up to that anyway.

    The sad thing about the US government is that although it was supposed to be "by the people for the people", it seems that they're reverting into standard government practice. It will soon get to the point where USAns are no better off than if they hadn't bothered with the whole revolution thing.

    Rich

  • One thing that I've never really understood is why Judaism has anything to do with race or genetics. As far as I can see, Judaism is a religion, i.e. a set of beliefs and rules followers are supposed to believe in and follow. So I guess Goddard had just as much right to criticize that organized religion as most people did in the Scientology post a few days ago. I'm not saying there is any similarity between them, but they're both religions. So you're wrong in accusing Goddard of racism.

    If I've misunderstood something, please educate me, but if Judaism is a genetic property, how can you convert to it?

  • Dr. Goddard's Highest Flight (Score:4)

    by mr_gerbik ( 122036 ) on Friday March 16, 2001 @02:28PM (#358711)
    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 [clarku.edu].

    Which of Dr. Goddard's rockets flew the highest?
    Dr. Goddard launched rocket L-13 [clarku.edu] 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 [clarku.edu], 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.
  • Robbert Goddard launched his rockets from a farm in Auburn MA... I live in Worcester right now, and I've been to the site in Auburn. Right now the Pakachoag Golf Course is there. On the 9th fairway there is a small monument dedicating the event. Goddard did go to school at Clark University in Worcester, but they kicked him out before he launched his first rocket because he scorched one of the labs. Little known history facts.
  • in America, early amateurs had to deal with the minor problem of things blowing up in their faces, or worse, lots and lots of shrapnel so that it blew up in other people's faces as well. Luckily this isn't the case today... But amateur astronomy...

    "Right now, as we speak, people in England, France America and Japan are planning this very thing."

    Any urls or contact lists for that? Twould be interesting to see who they are and see if they need help.
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • Ever read any of H.P. Lovecraft's stories? He may have been a complete Anglophile, racist & sexist, but that doesn't change the fact that he's the greatest horror writer who ever was... It may not be the best analogy, but there it is...
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • I'll guess that it will be another 75 years before something actually amounts from the space age... meaning that we move to another "heavenly" body, or we meet some new "friends," or one of our perpetually traveling rockets hits something and stops sending back data. As for now, all we have is a firm command over an area where nothing else is. So... let something come to us... or let us go to something. Or... cut the publicity on the space age. :-)
  • Interesting that the rockets he is so famously pictured next to were complete flops. For example, his first liquid-fueled rocket flew 40 feet high, but also 184 feet to the side. A propane tank thrown into a fire could probably go farther (and with just as much direction and stability!)
  • I go to school at WPI, one of the colleges he taught at. The rocket was launched in Auburn, the next town south. This anniversary also gave the frat boys an excuse to make a rocket sculpture of snow in the fountain.
  • Actually, the Space Race started in 1957.
    Goddards rockets made people relize that there was a way to get people into space. Reasearch to do so began almost immediatly after Goddards launch.
    So if you define Space age as the moment when people began to persue a realistic way of getting into space, then Goddard did start the space age.
  • SOC is NOT classified as a religon. They'll argue it of course, but just ask the IRS.
    Jewish people are a specific race, Judaism is a religon.
    The two are tied tightly together, but there is difference.
    Of course the poster says he is a newly converted Jew, then says "our people". I'm not Jewish, but I wonder what people who have been Jewish for thousands of years, and have been through a tremendous amount of crap, think when someone jumps on and says that.
    Not that its wrong, I'm just curious.
  • Isn't attitude important when you launch a rocket? ;)
    wouldn't want it to go off in an un-expected angle now, would we?

  • Pah! (Score:4)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Friday March 16, 2001 @01:50PM (#358721) Homepage Journal
    Goddards early rocket flights were faked. I saw it on the FOX network.
  • This shows that Amateurism has a place in space exploration.

    Amateurism? Goddard was a professional physicist.
    --
  • I don't want an amateur building the transportation system that I drive to work, much less one that takes me to Mars. As it was during the advance across the American frontier almost two centuries ago, the advance into space will be driven by the entire range of human attributes, some rather idealistic and some rather venal.
  • I'm not a dork or a Russian, just your basic Terran, more than happy to be proud of the acomplishments of fellow Terrans Gagarin, Ziolkovsky and Korolev.

    But, nation states and national borders are a human invention, invisible from space. If we are ever actually visited by aliens, I suspect they'll be amused and dismayed by our self-destructive obsession with walling ourselves off from each other based on....well, what?

  • Robert Goddard was a great scientist. Period. Nobody really cares whether or not he was a mean man, bad father, chauvenist(?) or pretty much anything else for that matter. What he is known for is being the father of modern rocketry. He was a genius. Much in the same way that any people are geniuses. They think up a new idea, and whether they share that new idea with anyone or not, it was still a new idea.

    So please, for once, don't criticize someone because they were smart (whether they were smarter than you or not is irrelevant) or because they were a mean person. Criticize someone because their work was incorrect, or their theories were flawed. That is the best way to get the result that you want.
  • America sucks today - I agree - its about hoarding cash

    Get out and leave me your wallet, you fucking commie.

    ---
  • excellen use of the molotons in a sentence
    ---
  • Ive always said "wor-shis-ter" But then I never was any good at pronouncing stuff.
  • heh, but why is her top apparently wet just below the simulated camel tattoo?

    ---

  • Well, I wouldn't say absolutely nothing has happened after 1968.
    Look around and you will see thousands of artificial satellites orbiting the earth; since the MIR and now with the International Space Station there is a permanent pressence of humankind on the space; exploration trips to Mars, Cassini on its way to Saturn, landing on an asteroid with NEAR, spaceships to the sun and many, many other missions or accomplishments directly related to rocket and space science.
    The only thing that has not gone further is men landing on planets and the fact is that it may be fun, specially for the astronaut, but the gain over non-tripulated trips is slight.
  • No, USians really are all stupid.
    Or at least the ones that live in my area of the country.

    --
  • Goddard made the first liquid-fueled rockets

    --
  • This may be a bit off-topic,but I think a broader point can actually be extrapolated from this.

    It is always more important to look at the ideas of someone for their own value rather than because of who said them. Although Goddard may have been a racist, the ideas he influenced are pivotal because of their own power, not because of anything he believed in.

    It's a big thing these days to believe in someone because of the ideas they espouse, rather than examining the idea on its own merits.

    The danger in this works the other way, when you despise someone for who they are rather than their ideas. For instance, many people villify Nazi Germany without fully understanding the ideas that shaped what happened. And in demonising the individuals involved, they lose the chance to learn from it.

    Many studies have shown (the Electric Shock experiment etc etc) that any and all of the acts committed during the holocaust would be performed by 90% of the population in any "civilised" country. The assumption that such things happened in Nazi Germany because the people were "Nazi's" is dangerously erroneous. They happened because people like to conform when someone in authority tells them it's ok. And this assumption is mirrored in minimising any valuable or useful ideas introduced by someone whose values are twisted.

    A good idea is a good idea regardless of who thinks of it, and the same with bad ideas.

    mick

  • Rocket age (Score:5)

    by Rubyflame ( 159891 ) on Friday March 16, 2001 @01:52PM (#358734) Homepage
    That's rocket age. Not space age. The space age began in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik.
  • This has been misreported so many times it seems to have become accepted as fact. Goddard didn't launch from Worcester - he launched his rockets from Auburn, MA. True, Worcester is bigger than Auburn and is right next to it, but lets keep the facts streight. You wouldn't say that the Jet Propultion Laboritory is in LA, even if LA is the closest big city. You would say that JPL is in Pasadena, because that's where it is. Likewise, Slashdot isn't based out of Boston - last I heard, it was based out of Andover, wherever that is ;-).

    I've got a few friends from Auburn, and they get hopping mad whenever someone claims that Goddard launched from Worcester. For their sake, please, please correct this! For my sake too, because I don't want to hear the tirade again.

    --

  • When the Allies captured Heisenberg & the nuclear team, they placed them under house arrest, for several months, and (secretly) taped all their conversations - which were many, loud, and angry. The logs have since been published; I forget the title, but if you can find it, do. It's a really illustrative example of the many conflicting interests they worked under, and why -- a more concrete analysis of the subject of this thread.

    I would really like an 'update comment' function, so I could come back and add the title...

  • I go to the school he spent a lot of time at (Worcester Polytech) and when I went to my first class today I noticed a large (10 feet?) tall snow-rocket had been built on the fountain right in the middle of campus. "75" and "Goddard" were painted onto the snow too, it was pretty cool, I wish I had a picture.
    -Stype
  • 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. :)

    You would think that the patents would have expired from the 1920's and 30's. Even the 40's

    Have the recent changes in the copyright law extended those as well, so that Nasa is in constant violation of patents from over 50 years ago?

    Greed runs Rampant!

  • Go to the Auburn Mall on I-290 & Rt-12 outside Worcester MA, and you can see the monument there - looks like an early 60's rocket - on the site of Goddard's Aunt Effie's cabbage patch.

  • That's real nice.

    The saddest thing about the goat people is that it's apparently a religion for you and you feel some need to spread the word of anus. I was in line at a New York Fries tonight and while the attendant was filling a little container full of ranch dressing it made a "fart" noise. Several ~8 year olds thought this was a riot. These are who I suspect are the goat people. I can totally understand if you're all around 9 years old and this whole net thing is all new and funny, but otherwise it really is sad. If you are around 9 you'll come to realize at some point that it's not funny, it's not witty, rather it's just simply lame. It's pathetic.

    If you aren't a young adolescent trying to find your true path, I don't despise you but rather I feel pity for you. That is really a sad condition.

  • A little Von Braun commentary from the early '60s

    "Once the rockets go up who cares where they come down. That's not my department", says Wernher Von Braun
    Tom Lehrer's song "Wernher Von Braun"

    Von Braun's autobiography was "I Aim for the Stars". Posters for it at bookstores often had the handwritten addition "But, sometimes I hit London"

  • Hmmm.... (Score:3)

    by canning ( 228134 ) on Friday March 16, 2001 @02:05PM (#358748) Homepage
    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. :)

  • 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.

    While I agree that Tesla was screwed over in a number of ways, this wasn't one of them. Tesla didn't invent alternating current but rather a number of inventions that made AC usable. Because of these inventions he (under Westinghouse) won the rights to build the electrical infrastructure at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893. Shortly thereafter, he was won the rights to outfit Niagara Falls for the generation of AC power (statue of him stands there today). Tesla's name was a household word at that time and he was given all the credit in the world quickly overtaking Edison (who was first, actually) in the war to bring electricity to the people.

    Devon

  • I started doing some research on whether Goddard had any influence on von Braun. I didn't find anything conclusive either way

    From Nasa's page on Goddard [nasa.gov]:
    Yet, several score of the 1750 copies of the 1920 Smithsonian report [by Goddard about the feasibity of sending a rocket to the moon] reached Europe. The German Rocket Society was formed in 1927, and the German Army began its rocket program in 1931.

    The founder of the German Rocket Society was Hermann Oberth [kiosek.com], who had done theoretical work on rocketry for his doctoral thesis (although it was rejected) in the early twenties. Oberth would have been one of the few people in Europe who would have been interested in Goddard's work and taken the implications of it seriously. In the early thirties Oberth took on von Braun as an assistant. It seems fairly certain that Oberth would have followed Goddard's career with interest, and that von Braun would therefore have been aware of Goddard's experiments.

  • Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky [fiu.edu] (1857-1935) was proposing manned and unmanned spaceflight using rockets while Robert Goddard [nasa.gov] was still in diapers.

    Tsiolkovsky, who was self-taught from the age of 10, was inspired by sci-fi pioneer Jules Verne. He became a writer himself but left fiction behind to work on the more theoretical problems of space exploration.

    His contributions to the field are too numerous to list here, but here is his seminal "Plan of Space Exploration" of 1926:

    1. Creation of rocket airplanes with wings.
    2. Progressively increasing the speed and altitude of these airplanes.
    3. Production of real rockets - without wings.
    4. Ability to land on the surface of the sea.
    5. Reaching excape velocity (about 8 Km/second), and the first flight into Earth orbit.
    6. Lengthening rocket flight times in space.
    7. Experimental use of plants to make an artificial atmosphere in spaceships.
    8. Using pressurized space suits for activity outside of spaceships.
    9. Making orbiting greenhouses for plants.
    10. Constructing large orbital habitats around the Earth.
    11. Using solar radiation to grow food, to heat space quarters, and for transport throughout the Solar System.
    12. Colonisation of the asteroid belt.
    13. Colonisation of the entire Solar System and beyond.
    14. Acheivement of individual and social perfection.
    15. Overcrowding of the Solar System and the colonization of the Milky Way (the Galaxy).
    16. The Sun begins to die and the people remaining in the Solar System's population go to other suns.

    Currently, we're about half way down the list.

    More info on the recognised father of astronautics can be found at the Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics [informatics.org], which also has a more complete biography [informatics.org]. Even NASA [nasa.gov] recognises that modern rocketry began with his endeavours in this article [nasa.gov] oriented for kids.

    Goddard may have been the first to launch a rocket in modern times (as earlier posters pointed out, the Chinese were using rockets centuries earlier), but he followed and everyone else followed in Tsiolkovsky's footsteps.

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