Robert H. Goddard

[Smokey]

Apparently when Robert Goddard and a colleague were looking at a captured V2, the guy said to Robert "This looks like your design" and he replied "Yes, it does rather"

Robert H. Goddard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[twoeagles]

The German rocketeers were genuinely amazed that American military did not
wholly embrace Robert Goddard and his work. All that ground breaking
technology via private funding. On the other hand, Goddard may not have
thrived in a large, noisy team environment!

[Holedigger]

You mean working in a large, noisy environment with a gun to your head! The engineers were constantly having to play the political games under intense pressure.

It is amazing they launched as many as they did with the supply chain under the such pressure. By late in the war, this was a complex thing to build and with slave labor to boot. It's a wonder any of them flew!

The Norden bomb sight might not have been able to put the bomb in the pickle barrel, but it took out the trains that brought the cucumbers from the fields, the vinegar plant and the salt processing facility. That leaves the barrel empty!
The V2 ended up just being a terror weapon and not really of tactical or strategic importance. (good thing they did not have a nuke ready)

Chris
Images and Illustrations at
http://www.printroom.com/pro/ShepArtStudio

[delcyros]

From my limited point of view Goddart seems to get less credit for his work than he should. I remember that one of his rockets was the first manmade object to exceed the speed of sound under it´s own power in horizontal flight.
A missed opportunity. But by this time, the gouvernment is suspect to spent it´s money on another on of those "strange" new technical fields around there. Well possible that the money would have spent to some kinds of death rays instead.

[davparlr]

From what I understand, is that Goddard was a very secretive man and refuse to share information with other rocketeers, which hampered rocket development.

He is underappreciated.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

We all know that Von Braun went to the United States after the war and worked for NASA. Imagine though if Goddard had not died and the 2 of them could have worked together.

[Twitch]

The Weimar Republic began serious rocketry in 1927. Hermann Oberth in 1922 foresaw the use of them in futire conflicts and had substantial concepts. Dr. Walter Dornberger and Leo Zansenn began a funded government testing program in earnest in 1927.

The "Aggrate" rocket series known as the V-2 derivitives alter were modeled after the German rifle projectile- tapering at the back. The A-4 became the V-2 we know today under the 3rd Reich.

Goddard's work was mostly ignored by the US. The Depression military had little money flight of fancy projects or even basic equipment. They used assorted trucks and jeep type vehicles with the word "tank" painted on top during maneuvers in the 30s due to lack of actual tanks.

It is common throughout military history that designers with then state of the art knowledge would produce similar weapon and vehicle designs because the tech of the times dictated similar roles. Jet turbines for example were being forwarded by inventors in 4 countries at the same time with no collaboration so I don't find it odd in the least that a final design for any weapon anywhere wouldn't parallel another from afar.

[twoeagles]

The best biography I ever read on Goddard was This High Man, I think by
an author named Lehman(?). Highly recommend it.

[Smokey]

Originally Posted by Twitch

The Weimar Republic began serious rocketry in 1927. Hermann Oberth in 1922 foresaw the use of them in futire conflicts and had substantial concepts. Dr. Walter Dornberger and Leo Zansenn began a funded government testing program in earnest in 1927.

The "Aggrate" rocket series known as the V-2 derivitives alter were modeled after the German rifle projectile- tapering at the back. The A-4 became the V-2 we know today under the 3rd Reich.

Goddard's work was mostly ignored by the US. The Depression military had little money flight of fancy projects or even basic equipment. They used assorted trucks and jeep type vehicles with the word "tank" painted on top during maneuvers in the 30s due to lack of actual tanks.

It is common throughout military history that designers with then state of the art knowledge would produce similar weapon and vehicle designs because the tech of the times dictated similar roles. Jet turbines for example were being forwarded by inventors in 4 countries at the same time with no collaboration so I don't find it odd in the least that a final design for any weapon anywhere wouldn't parallel another from afar.

True, but apparently one of the engineers who worked with von Braun told some allied scientists that they should talk to Robert Goddard about rocket design

[Twitch]

Of course they should have. After the war it was a balls out race to keep ahead of the Sovs and every scientific brain on the subject of rocketry should have been exploited.

[syscom3]

I thought this was appropriate....

"New York Times criticism
The publication of Goddard's document gained him national attention from U.S. newspapers. Although the book makes no outlandish boasts of targeting the moon or the planets, the papers sensationalized Goddard's ideas to the point of misrepresentation.

As a result of this, Goddard became increasingly suspicious of others and often worked alone, which limited the ripple effect from his work. His unsociability was a result of the harsh criticism that he received from the media and from other scientists, who doubted the viability of rocket travel in space. After one of his experiments in 1929, a local Worcester newspaper carried the mocking headline "Moon rocket misses target by 238,799 1/2 miles."

On January 12, 1920 a front-page story in The New York Times, "Believes Rocket Can Reach Moon," reported a Smithsonian press release about a "multiple charge high efficiency rocket." The chief application seen was "the possibility of sending recording apparatus to moderate and extreme altitudes within the earth's atmosphere," the advantage over balloon-carried instruments being ease of recovery since "the new rocket apparatus would go straight up and come straight down." But it also mentioned a proposal "to [send] to the dark part of the new moon a sufficiently amount of the most brilliant flash powder which, in being ignited on impact, would be plainly visible in a powerful telescope. This would be the only way of proving that the rocket had really left the attraction of the earth as the apparatus would never come back."[1]

The next day, an unsigned NY Times editorial delighted in heaping scorn on the proposal. The editorial writer attacked the instrumentation application by questioning whether "the instruments would return to the point of departure... for parachutes drift just as balloons do. And the rocket, or what was left of it after the last explosion, would need to be aimed with amazing skill, and in a dead calm, to fall on the spot whence it started. But that is a slight inconvenience... though it might be serious enough from the [standpoint] of the always innocent bystander... a few thousand yards from the firing line."

The weight of scorn was, however, reserved for the lunar proposal: "after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey it will neither be accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that." It expressed disbelief that Professor Goddard actually "does not know of the relation of action to reaction, and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react" and even talked of "such things as intentional mistakes or oversights." Goddard, the Times insisted, apparently suggesting bad faith, "only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."

On July 17, 1969—the day after the launch of Apollo 11— the New York Times published a short item under the headline "A Correction," summarizing its 1920 editorial mocking Goddard, and concluding: "Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.""

Robert Goddard (scientist - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

[Smokey]

Originally Posted by Twitch

Of course they should have. After the war it was a balls out race to keep ahead of the Sovs and every scientific brain on the subject of rocketry should have been exploited.

No, he specifically meant that Robert Goddard could tell them everything they needed to know about the V2 design. Ápparently many scientists in the team at Peenemumde knew Goddard's work

At the time, Nazi Germany was highly interested in American physicist Robert H. Goddard's research. Before 1939, German scientists occasionally contacted Goddard directly with technical questions. After that, things got rather tense. Wernher von Braun used Goddard's plans from various journals and incorporated them into the building of the A-4 series of rockets--better known as the V-2.[3]. In 1963, von Braun reflected on the history of rocketry, and said of Goddard's work: "His rockets ... may have been rather crude by present-day standards, but they blazed the trail and incorporated many features used in our most modern rockets and space vehicles" [4]. Goddard confirmed his work was used by von Braun when, after the war ended, Goddard inspected captured German V-2s, and recognized many components which he had invented

Wernher von Braun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heres a good site on rocket development

Goddard

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by syscom3

"On July 17, 1969—the day after the launch of Apollo 11— the New York Times published a short item under the headline "A Correction," summarizing its 1920 editorial mocking Goddard, and concluding: "Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.""

Robert Goddard (scientist - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The news media does so much damage with so little brains. Our enemies primary weapon and most effective strategy is manipulation of the worlds willingly gullible media.