Re: Robert Goddard - great scientist
- From: meiza<meiza@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 9 May 2006 00:15:34 +0300 (EEST)
Bits <raghuvir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Details of Robert Goddard
It was his flight to fancy that laid the foundation for the first
flight into space. Robert Hutchings Goddard, the Father of Modern
Rocketry, was an American expert of rocket research who is recognized
as a remarkable experimenter as well as an engineering genius.
Wasn't Goddard secretive and not much of his knowledge actually made it
through to any of the later designs by others? Some claim it was Oberth
and von Braun and the Peenemünde Germans that are the real modern rocketry
forefathers, both in USA and in the Soviet Union. But since Americans and
Russians are a little ashamed of that, they talk about Tsiolkovsky,
Goddard and Korolev.
How is it really? Who's the daddy of, say, turbopumps? Goddard used it
first, but was not very succesfully, no? Guidance - inertial guidance?
The wikipedia article states these kind of things:
-begin quote-
"Ironically, it was Nazi Germany that took the most interest in his research.
Wernher von Braun relied on Goddard's plans when he developed the V-2 rockets
during World War II [4]. Before 1939, German scientists would occasionally
even contact Goddard directly with technical questions. In 1963, von Braun,
reflecting on the history of rocketry, said of Goddard: "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" [5].
Goddard was the center of a famous espionage operation involving the German
Intelligence Agency, Abwehr and an operative called Nikolaus Ritter. As the
head of the agency's U.S. operations, Ritter recruited a source who
infiltrated the circle around Goddard, leaking his discoveries to the
Germans."
-end quote-
What technologies would these be?
Another source says Ritter returned to Germany in 1937.
Goddard launched his first liquid rocket in 1926, Oberth in 1929.
The A-1 was tested from 1932-33, A-2 1934, A-3 in 1937 and A-5 in 1939.
Only the A-4 used turbopumps. It was first tested in 1942.
The link to von Braun's interview from 1963 is broken and Marshall search
doesn't work.
Get more information about Robert Goddard to visit our web site
http://www.worldofbiography.com/9131%2DRobert%20Goddard/index1.htm
The above url lists a lot of achievements for Goddard:
* Methods of using inflowing fuel to cool the combustion chamber and nozzle.
* Ways of handling and using cryogenic propellants.
* Pressurization of fuel tanks by an inert gas to push the fuels in the chamber.
* The pressure regulators for above.
* Centrifugal high-pressure pumps for fuel feeding.
* Seals for above pumps.
* Movable vanes to steer a rocket by redirecting exhaust gases.
* Gyroscopically controlled stabilization system using above vanes.
* Variable.thrust rocket motors.
* Methods of measuring rocket thrust and other parameters.
* Various igniting systems.
* Remote-control methods for rocket launches.
How much of the above was "common knowledge", how much did the Germans invent
themselves and how much did they copy from Goddard?
.
- References:
- Robert Goddard - great scientist
- From: Bits
- Robert Goddard - great scientist
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