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Table of Contents
Robert H. Goddard was an American inventor, physicist, professor, and engineer who invented and built the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket. His invention has been credited for ushering in the Spage Age, a period of space flight and innovation. Goddard is referred to as the founder of modern rocketry.
See the fact file below for more information on the Robert H. Goddard or alternatively, you can download our 38-page Robert H. Goddard worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Key Facts & Information
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
- Robert Hutchings Goddard was born on October 5, 1882, in Worcester, Massachusetts.
- Robert Goddard was the only child of Nahum Danford Goddard and Fannie Louise Hoyt to survive childhood.
- Young Robert’s curiosity as a child shaped his interest in science, specifically engineering and technology.
- His parents were supportive of his interests and gifted him a telescope, a microscope, and a subscription to the Scientific American journal.
- At a young age, even before he developed an interest in space flight, Robert already had a fascination with flight because of kites and balloons.
- At 16 years old, Goddard attempted to create a balloon out of aluminum that he filled with hydrogen.
- Although the balloon did not take flight, the experiment only fueled Goddard’s interest.
- His interest gained even more momentum when, also at 16, he read H. G. Wells’ science fiction novel The War of the Worlds, which consequently led Goddard to become interested in space.
- As a young boy, Robert was sickly and fell two years behind his classmates.
- As he was frequently too ill to attend classes, he became a voracious reader and regularly visited his local library.
- When his health improved, Robert was able to attend South High Community School in 1901.
- He excelled academically and graduated as valedictorian in 1904.
- Following his high school graduation, he attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he earned a B.S. degree in physics in 1908, and afterwards, he became a physics instructor for a year.
- In 1909, he began his graduate studies at Clark University in Worcester, where he received a master’s degree in physics in 1910, and his doctorate degree in physics in 1911.
- He remained for one more year at Clark as an honorary fellow in physics, teaching and conducting rocket experiments.
EARLY RESEARCH AND FIRST PATENTS
- In 1912, Goddard became a research fellow at Princeton University, where he studied the effects of radio waves on insulators, as radio was still very new technology at that time.
- Goddard left the following year due to falling ill with tuberculosis, and he returned home to Worcester.
- It was during his period of recovery when Goddard wrote his first rocket patent applications.
- In 1914, his patent for a multi-stage rocket using solid fuel and a patent for a liquid-fuel rocket were accepted and registered.
- His health gradually improved until he accepted a part-time position as an instructor and research fellow at Clark University.
EARLY ROCKETRY RESEARCH
- In 1915, Goddard performed his first test launch of a gunpowder-fueled rocket.
- He realized that the powder rockets were very inefficient in converting energy into thrust and motion.
- His solution to improve efficiency was to use de Laval nozzles, which were mostly used with steam turbine engines, and it worked.
- From 1916 to 1917, Goddard built and tested the first known experimental ion thrusters, which he thought could be useful for propulsion in outer space.
- In 1917, Goddard received funding from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., to support his rocketry research.
- He documented his mathematical theories of rocket propulsion and powder rocket experiments, which was published in 1919 in the treatise A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes.
- Goddard’s research was mostly geared towards space travel, but it was also applied for military purposes.
- Goddard made proposals to the Army, including an idea for a tube-based rocket launcher, which could be used as a light infantry weapon.
- The launcher became the precursor to the bazooka.
LIQUID-FUELED ROCKETS
- Goddard made his greatest engineering breakthroughs in the 1920s.
- Goddard established that liquid oxygen was the essential element for combustion in a rocket and that the rate of combustion was contingent on the amount of oxygen.
- On March 16, 1926, he launched his first liquid-fueled rocket in Auburn, Massachusetts.
- The rocket reached a height of 41 feet during a 2.5-second flight and flew at an average of about 60 miles per hour.
- After a test flight in 1929 that gained Goddard’s research some press publicity, American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh took interest in Goddard’s research and became instrumental in obtaining greater financial assistance.
- His rocket launch in 1929 carried the first scientific payload – a camera and a barometer.
- From 1930 to the mid-1940s, Goddard’s experiments received funding from the Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics.
- In 1930, he moved to Roswell, New Mexico, where he spent most of his time in continuous trial-and-error rocket experiments to reach high altitudes.
- In 1935, he was the first to shoot a liquid-fuel rocket faster than the speed of sound.
- In 1936, his work Liquid Propellant Rocket Development was published by the Smithsonian.
- He obtained patents for a steering apparatus for the jet stream for the rocket motor and for the use of multi-stage rockets to gain substantial altitudes.
- He also developed self-cooling rocket motors, power-driven fuel pumps, and other devices designed to launch man into outer space.
- In World War II, Goddard offered his services to the military again and developed practical jet-assisted takeoff and liquid-propellant rockets capable of variable thrust.
PERSONAL LIFE AND DEATH
- In 1924, he married Esther C. Kisk, a photographer of Goddard’s early rocket experiments, and they had no children.
- In 1944, Goddard was appointed the director of the American Rocket Society.
- Goddard is credited with 214 patents, of which 131 were filed by his wife after his death.
- At 62 years old, Robert Goddard died of throat cancer in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 10, 1945.
- The Goddard Memorial Library at Clark University was named after him.
Robert H. Goddard Worksheets
This is a double bundle addition which includes over 20 ready-to-use Robert H. Goddard worksheets which are perfect for students to learn about Robert Goddard who was an American inventor, physicist, professor, and engineer who invented and built the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket. His invention has been credited for ushering in the Spage Age, a period of space flight and innovation. Goddard is referred to as the founder of modern rocketry.
Worksheet Collection 1:
- Robert H. Goddard Facts
- In the Beginning
- The War of the Worlds
- Anniversary Day
- Master of Firsts
- Experiment Era
- Rocketry Timeline
- Rocket Series
- Contribution Checklist
- In Memory Of
- According to Goddard
Worksheet Collection 2:
- Robert Goddard Facts
- The Amazing Inventor
- Patent Checklist
- Related Vocabulary
- Which Is True?
- Research Timeline
- Creative Storytelling
- Rocket Study
- Dedicated to Space
- Appreciating Dr. Goddard
- My Rocket Design
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