From: higgins@fnalc.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Goddard's influence or lack thereof
Date: 5 Oct 92 18:55:17 GMT
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
NNTP-Posting-Host: fnalc.fnal.gov

In article <BvMqE7.Cx@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <1992Oct1.121929.18735@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>>>... like someone belittling Goddard because it was
>>>>Von Braun who capitalized on his work...
>>>
>>>early practical development of rockets in both Germany and the US did not
>>>owe much to Goddard except a few bits of basic concept and inspiration,
>>>because Goddard published hardly anything about his later work.  
>>I had the impression from reading several histories of rocketry that
>>Goddard and Oberth carried on a lively correspondence through the 
>>BIS. Thus I assumed that Von Braun benefited from Goddard's work...
> 
> I'd be interested to see references on this.  I checked the obvious source:
> Willy Ley's "Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space"... obvious because Ley
> was *there*, involved with the VfR from the start.  

The other Really Good Source for this is Frank Winter's *Prelude to
the Space Age*, from Smithsonian Press. Winter basically agrees with
the situation Henry describes:

> essentially nothing was known of Goddard's experimental work until his
> Guggenheim report in 1936.  By then, the VfR was defunct and von Braun's
> military team was already flying technology demonstrators and working on
> preliminary design of the A4 (aka V-2).
> 
> In 1929, Ley says that Goddard "curtly declined" to correspond with the
> VfR on the subject.  He may have corresponded with Oberth about theoretical
> issues, but he appears to have been entirely uncommunicative about the
> practical side.

Goddard was apparently scarred pretty badly by the ridicule he
received as the "Moon Professor" in 1920, after a well-meaning
Smithsonian Institution issued a press release publicizing his
monograph *A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes*.  He clammed up,
and became very secretive about his rocket research.  His work was
very advanced, but nobody benefited from it; the Russians and Germans
had to re-invent most techniques independently.

Lots of people knew about Goddard, in many countries, but Ley and
Winter report that various attempts to correspond with him met with
frustration.  I believe the Caltech gang, the BIS, and the American
Rocket Society in New Jersey all had similar experiences with Goddard.

Since Goddard was so reclusive, and Tsiolkovsky was mostly ignored by
his countrymen (and completely ignored by everybody else!) until after
the Revolution, Hermann Oberth should get the credit for getting the
Space Age started.  Publicity surrounding his book finally lit the flame of
rocket fever in Europe, and had some influence in getting Russians
interested in space and re-discovering Tsiolkovsky.  

I would speculate that, if spaceflight had not caught on in the
German-speaking countries in the 1920s, there was enough momentum
going in Russia with people like Nikolai Rynin that the space bug
might have gotten started there.  

"Do you know the asteroids, Mr.Kemp?...    Bill Higgins
Hundreds of thousands of them.  All        
wandering around the Sun in strange        Fermilab
orbits.  Some never named, never
charted.  The orphans of the Solar         higgins@fnal.fnal.gov
System, Mr. Kemp."
                                           higgins@fnal.bitnet
"And you want to become a father."
  --*Moon Zero Two*                        SPAN/Hepnet: 43011::HIGGINS