116
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
over the next 3 years. He found that the combustion efficiency of gunpowder rocket
was about 2% and the combustion speed only 300 m/s. By improving the combustion
chamber and the nozzle’s material and shape, and replacing the black powder with
smokeless powder, the efficiency could reach 60% and the speed 1.8 km/s. In 1917,
the Smithsonian Institution in Washington provided him a research funding of $5000
over 5 years, and the Clark University contributed $3500 to their physics laboratory as
further sponsorship. On the basis of intensively studying and testing the combustion
chamber of the rocket, he fully demonstrated that the gunpowder rockets are not only
low in efficiency and jet speed but also extremely unstable in thrust. It was concluded
eventually that only liquid rockets are the ideal vehicles for space flights.
When the United States announced its participation in the First World War,
Goddard worked with the U.S. military to develop rocket weapons. He designed two
kinds of rocket weapons: one is the weapon with a long range, similar to launching
projectiles; the other is the weapon with a short range, known today as anti-tank
rocket or bazooka. In 1918, he and his assistants carried out the test of launching the
anti-tank rocket for the U.S. Army at a launching site in Maryland and achieved good
test results. The Army showed interest, but the War came to an end, so the development did not go ahead. In 1919, Goddard wrote a research report entitled “A Method
of Reaching Extreme Altitudes”, which was published in the form of a treatise at the
Smithsonian Institution. He described his mathematic theories of rocket flight as well
as his experiments with solid-fueled rockets in the treatise, outlined the challenges of
lifting mass high to the atmosphere, and explored how rockets could solve the problems of high-altitude studies. Such around 1750 copies were distributed worldwide
that the publication of his treatise gained him national attention from newspapers in
the United States, in which there were some objective reports, as well as doubts and
sharp sarcasm about his scientific knowledge. Although his discussion of targeting
the Moon was just a small part of the work as a whole and was only intended as a
possibility rather than as intent, the newspapers overly sensationalized it, to the point
of misrepresentation and ridicule.
Goddard continued to focus on the storage and transportation methods of liquid
fuels and liquid oxidants and to look for possible fuels such as propane, ether and
gasoline. Since 1921, he had devoted to develop liquid rocket engine and carry out a
series of static tests but did not obtain the ideal results until 1925, a continuous 24-s
test of the rocket engine at the Physical Laboratory of Clark University. On March
16, 1926, Goddard launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket from his Aunt
Effie’s farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. Although the flight itself was modest, just
reaching an altitude of around 12.5 m and covering a distance of 56 m, it represents
the birthday of modern rocketry. From 1926 to 1941, Goddard carried out a total of
35 launching rocket tests and achieved a series of landmark test results, which are
listed in Table 3.1. It is shown from Table 3.1 that 11 intensive launch-tests were
carried out successively from 1935 to 1936 and a good flight test was achieved in
1937, with a flight altitude of 2700 m. Goddard had been suffered from technical
problems such as the rocket stability control, the propellant transfer and the engine
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
over the next 3 years. He found that the combustion efficiency of gunpowder rocket
was about 2% and the combustion speed only 300 m/s. By improving the combustion
chamber and the nozzle’s material and shape, and replacing the black powder with
smokeless powder, the efficiency could reach 60% and the speed 1.8 km/s. In 1917,
the Smithsonian Institution in Washington provided him a research funding of $5000
over 5 years, and the Clark University contributed $3500 to their physics laboratory as
further sponsorship. On the basis of intensively studying and testing the combustion
chamber of the rocket, he fully demonstrated that the gunpowder rockets are not only
low in efficiency and jet speed but also extremely unstable in thrust. It was concluded
eventually that only liquid rockets are the ideal vehicles for space flights.
When the United States announced its participation in the First World War,
Goddard worked with the U.S. military to develop rocket weapons. He designed two
kinds of rocket weapons: one is the weapon with a long range, similar to launching
projectiles; the other is the weapon with a short range, known today as anti-tank
rocket or bazooka. In 1918, he and his assistants carried out the test of launching the
anti-tank rocket for the U.S. Army at a launching site in Maryland and achieved good
test results. The Army showed interest, but the War came to an end, so the development did not go ahead. In 1919, Goddard wrote a research report entitled “A Method
of Reaching Extreme Altitudes”, which was published in the form of a treatise at the
Smithsonian Institution. He described his mathematic theories of rocket flight as well
as his experiments with solid-fueled rockets in the treatise, outlined the challenges of
lifting mass high to the atmosphere, and explored how rockets could solve the problems of high-altitude studies. Such around 1750 copies were distributed worldwide
that the publication of his treatise gained him national attention from newspapers in
the United States, in which there were some objective reports, as well as doubts and
sharp sarcasm about his scientific knowledge. Although his discussion of targeting
the Moon was just a small part of the work as a whole and was only intended as a
possibility rather than as intent, the newspapers overly sensationalized it, to the point
of misrepresentation and ridicule.
Goddard continued to focus on the storage and transportation methods of liquid
fuels and liquid oxidants and to look for possible fuels such as propane, ether and
gasoline. Since 1921, he had devoted to develop liquid rocket engine and carry out a
series of static tests but did not obtain the ideal results until 1925, a continuous 24-s
test of the rocket engine at the Physical Laboratory of Clark University. On March
16, 1926, Goddard launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket from his Aunt
Effie’s farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. Although the flight itself was modest, just
reaching an altitude of around 12.5 m and covering a distance of 56 m, it represents
the birthday of modern rocketry. From 1926 to 1941, Goddard carried out a total of
35 launching rocket tests and achieved a series of landmark test results, which are
listed in Table 3.1. It is shown from Table 3.1 that 11 intensive launch-tests were
carried out successively from 1935 to 1936 and a good flight test was achieved in
1937, with a flight altitude of 2700 m. Goddard had been suffered from technical
problems such as the rocket stability control, the propellant transfer and the engine