Trail Blazer into Space

This article reviews that from the Cold War to Voyager, the work of Robert Goddard has received much recognition. Independently, Goddard started conceiving and designing a variety of air and space vehicles, and analyzing methods for propulsion and control. In 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright had achieved powered flight with the three-axis control they had invented, but the flying machine was extremely difficult to manage. In 1907, while he was still an undergraduate, Goddard studied the dynamics of the Wright Flyer, and designed a gyroscope-based stabilizer for automatic control. His attempts to procure government funding were rejected by a United States military that did not recognize any value of rockets beyond the possibility of assistance at takeoff for aircraft. Rockets increasingly are supporting the marvels of our post-Cold War information revolution. The satellite-based Global Positioning System has brought the most sophisticated navigation system into the personal automobile. Within the century, Robert Goddard’s vision and life’s work begat far more than he could have imagined.