Re: Goddard's 80th Anniversary and.... nothing?

"TVDad Jim" <jim@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

So you're saying the whole business with the German rocket program
taking ideas from Goddard's patents (pump design, gyro stabilization,
rocket motor vanes for thrust control) is an exaggeration? Was there
someone else before Goddard with a functioning liquid fuel/oxidizer
rocket assembly?

Goddard certainly did launch the first liquid fuel/oxidizer rockets.
And yes, German commercial attaches did get copies of his patents (as
they routinely did in all areas of technology with potential military
applications, and in many without). But there were German precursors
as well for every innovation you mention, and once the military money
started flowing they left him in the dust very quickly.

The whole "they got their best ideas from his patents" business was a
confection of (1) US surprise & chagrin at the V2, (2) tactful postwar
fibs from Von Braun and his associates, (3) Goddard's wife's long
crusade to get him recognized as The Only True Begetter, and (4) US
desire post-Sputnik to have a native champion -- both to match that
Tolivosky fella the Reds kept talking about, and to edge the focus
away from the Paperclip immigrants who really mattered.

The point is not that Goddard didn't have important ideas, but that he
was working with 2-4 technicians for a few component tests a year, for
a launch every year or two. And judging from his prima-donna record
with the War Dept. in both WWI (proto-bazooka) and WWII (JATO/RATO),
he was totally unsuited to the kind of big-team management,
integration and testing at which Von Braun excelled. That was simply
indispensable if you wanted to get from 9000 feet straight up
(Goddard's best effort after 14 years) to something like the V2.


.

Relevant Pages

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