What happened in 1926

What happened a hundred years ago in 1926.  This evet was pivotal for the future of aerospace.  Here is a profile of this event and the man behind it.  Robert Hutchings Goddard. 

Transcript

Paula 0:00

For the Best Aerospace Era this is mansplaining. Here is the host Anthony L. Sealey

0:09

The date is March 16th, 1926. It was a Tuesday picture, a cold snow covered Massachusetts farm field. The wind was calm, the sky was clear. An ordinary setting for an extraordinary experiment. welcome aerospace enthusiasts. There are many dates we learned to remember in grade school or college that relate to the best aerospace era. Dates like July 20th, 1969. The date Apollo 11 landed on the moon with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. April 12th, 1961, the date Cosmonaut, Yuri Gargin became the first man to reach orbit in Vostok October 4th, 1957. The date Sputnik 1 the first human built satellite reached orbit. October 14th, 1947. The date Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in a Bell X one rocket plane, or how about, may 21st, 1927. The date the spirit of St. Louis landed in Paris, France after Charles Lindbergh flew it across the Atlantic in a solo flight. These are just a few examples. I'm sure you can think of others. We are told to remember these dates and events, possibly even write papers or a thesis on them. Today I wanna talk about a major aerospace event that happened before all these others Something that happened a hundred years ago, this March, 2026 An event, just like the man behind it that does not get as much attention or coverage. But before we get to him, what was going on a hundred years ago? Let's look at 1926. Calvin Coolidge is President. The St. Louis Cardinals with Roger Hornsby defeated Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees in the World Series. A large scale general strike in support of the coal miner strike arises in the United Kingdom. A train crash that killed 248 people and injured nearly a hundred more happened in Costa Rica. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini survives not one, but two assassination attempts. Also, notorious gangster. Al Capone survives and escapes a hit from a rival faction. A major hurricane ravages Miami, Florida, resulting in millions of damages and the deaths of around a hundred. Another the major hurricane kills over 600 in Cuba. This was a bad year for hurricanes Hirohito, becomes Emperor of Japan, excavations in Iraq. Unearthed cuniform tablets and other artifacts that date back to 3000 bc. This was an exciting time for archeology. Now for some more aerospace related news from this year, an airship or a Zeppelin named the Norge, led by Ronald Amundsen flew over the North Pole. Also, the US government got involved with regulating aviation with the Air Commerce Act of 1926 in the hopes of making aviation safer. But neither are, these are the subject for this episode. This event had far greater implications for the future of space travel. Yes, space travel all the way back in 1926. I have mentioned figures in previous episodes who theorized and wrote a about the possibility of using rockets to reach space even before the first World War and long before the first satellite was launched in 1957. One of these like-minded individuals stopped daydreaming and writing about it and decided to get to work and build something that could one day be developed into a real space launch vehicle. A new kind of rocket engine, one that uses a reaction mass of liquid oxygen and hydrogen, and one that uses a nozzle that maximizes the thrust from the reaction mass. What this figure created and test launched in 1926 set the stage for how we humans reached orbit, how we reached the moon, and how our probes traveled into infinity. A method that is still used to this day. This is the story of Robert Hutchings Godard. Robert Hutchings Goddard was born on October 5th, 1882 in. Worcester, Massachusetts. That's about an hour west of downtown Boston. Boston's a cool city to visit, by the way. Just don't go in the winter. His parents were named Nahum and Fannie Goddard. Nahum was an industrious man himself. He even had a few inventions to his credit. So Goddard was born into a comfortable living situation, although his mother was often in bad health, which led to his grandmother doing the usual motherly jobs. Although Goddard was sheltered by his grandmother greatly. He did not experience the same social activities as other American kids of the time. This is possibly because Goddard was feeble. And known to get sick often himself, but it is unclear if this is the real reason. This was a time of modernization for the New England area and the country at large. Most of the kids at the time would turn on the radio and here I boxing match or music. But Goddard was the type of kid who wanted to take apart the radio and find out how it worked. Young Goddard had ample time to read and ponder a more advanced future. Things like a type of transport tube, to travel from one city to another, or ways to travel into space. In his teenage years, he demonstrated a very intelligent, but often scattered mind. Goddard practiced the loss habit of having a journal and writing down everything from chores he performed at home to current events across the world. From his journal entries, Goddard seems to be someone whose mind jumps from one subject to the next fast and often. Like someone who has trouble keeping up with the flow of his own thoughts. It is evident though that Goddard made it a habit to keep up with current and local events. He also had a hobby of playing with fireworks. You could also say he was a science fiction enthusiast, although this is long before Star Wars, star Trek, Stargate, the Expanse. Or any other modern sci-fi franchises. This is long before this kind of genre was even called science fiction. The genre of science fiction or sci-fi as we think of it today, did not become more popularized until the 1920s and thirties. So what inspired Goddard to spend so much of his youth sheltered at home, musing about space? He read stories like War The Worlds, and The First Man in the Moon by HG Wells, along with, from the Earth to the Moon, and its sequel Round the Moon by Jules Verne. Those are good reads, even for today. He may have later saw possibly the first sci-fi movie ever, a silent film from all the way back in 1902, A trip to the moon. By George's Melies. The thought of traveling through space to another planet like Mars, fascinated young Goddard's mind. However, a major event changes science fiction hobby into a calling to make space travel a reality. At the age of 17, on October 19th, 1899, Goddard was doing some yard work, trimming some limbs off of a cherry tree. While he was up in this cherry tree, is where I thought occurred to him, he wrote about this event saying. I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device, which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars. It seemed to me that a weight whirling around a horizontal shaft moving more rapidly above than below can furnish lift by virtue of the greater centrifugal force at the top of the path. He goes on to say, I was a different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended for existence at last, seemed very purposive. Now this revolving perpetual emotion he speaks of is definitely more science fiction than a practical method. But Goddard here is trying to figure out how to make the insurmountable project of reaching space and reality. Also, you can tell he is more intellectual than most 17 year olds here. Goddard referenced this cherry Tree event many times throughout his life and calls October 19th anniversary day. Apparently trees are a great place to have an epiphany. Just ask Sir. Isaac Newton. He wrote down in his notes any ideas or suggestions for ways to reach space and the moon, but Mars was his ultimate goal. Goddard. Also mused about how one would navigate up there. Goddard balance many ideas on how to attain escape velocity, how to slow down and land on another world. Even how to keep a human alive long enough to survive the trek. Goddard's. Biggest problem though was how to avoid micro asteroids, which he deemed impossible at times. Goddard obsessed over propulsion and gyroscopic. But based on his writings, he often loses focus on what was scientifically possible and what was fantasy. A theme that continues throughout his adult life. He even began performing his own amateur experiments using essentially fireworks in his backyard. Now, Goddard knew he needed more information and education in order to come up with less amateur ideas and perform more scientific experiments. For that, he needed to study physics. But first, he still needed to go to high school, which he finally did at the age of 19. As I said before, he was very sheltered by his family growing up. Goddard is always known to have. A female figure, either his mother or grandmother, to structure his life. His sheltering is why he got a late start at high school at the age of 19. Goddard was never described as what you would say an independent person. This also delayed those valuable and at times painful social steps one must face growing up. Now I have read from different sources that Goddard was known to be different personality wise. Goddard seems to be the type of person who spends most of his time in his own head and usually needed someone to motivate and focus as mind. Up until this time it was mostly his grandmother. But in the academic world, Goddard could finally thrive. He attended South High School in Worcester. He was a few years older and obviously smarter than his classmates. However, less mature because of his sheltered upbringing. He continued with his amateur experiments and wrote down any and all theories he had. Goddard wrote this on July 12th, 1903. It is a very important thing to jot down suggestions that come into one's mind from time to time as the thoughts that are most useful do not come at a bidding time. Activity fosters growth and furnishes suggestions. He was not near as perceptive to others' ideas though. Goddard always wanted to be and thought of himself as the authority on rocketry. The true Rocketeer Goddard even sent articles. Of his ideas to science magazines and organizations, which were mostly ignored. In, the next coming years, though in his time in college at Worcester Polytech Institute and later Clark University, Goddard's theories were fostered by his professors. His theories seem to have accelerated in different directions during this time. Check out what he wrote about in December of 1909. An airplane operated at high speed by the repulsion of charged particles, propulsions in space by repulsion of charged particles. Reaction against displacement currents in space, repulsion of highly heated material particles at the focus parabolic. Mirrors the use of solar energy by light devices on a spaceship. The idea of a multi charge rocket. The use of liquid propellants. And keep in mind he's writing things like this before that Titanic sank at times. Goddard sounds like a mad scientist with his ideas. It would've been interesting to get Goddard and Nicola Tesla in the same room together and see what they would talk about or even get them to collaborate on a project together. Unfortunately, I cannot find any evidence that they ever met. Godard refers to rockets as guns or an apparatus at times. In his writings, he also refers to space as infinity. This one may seem like an amateurs term to use for space today, but it's definitely a fitting description. He also thought of using a payload with a substance that would illuminate on impact with the moon. This would resolve any doubt that his rocket made it to the lunar surface surface. He was already thinking about conspiracy theorists who would say he didn't do it. That he did not make it to the moon. Just as people today think we haven't made it to the moon, I do understand that it wouldn't be the first time the government lied to you, but I think we made it to the moon. Now, I'm not a physicist or an aerospace engineer, so a lot of his writings are over my head. However, when he writes multi charge rocket and the use of liquid propellants, those are things I can appeal to. After graduation, Goddard became a professor at Clark University. The tall, thin, balding, but always well-dressed professor was known to be receptive and enthusiastic. Although I feel like he was one of those professors, he could go off on a subject and lose a class with his genius. Keep in mind I tried physics once at Reinhardt University and after just one class I knew I was not cut out for that. His students and the faculty would often see Goddard with a cigar. He was a cigar aficionado. You could say. I bring this up because Goddard actually had tuberculosis one time. It even got so bad he was given two weeks to live, but that did not stop him from smoking cigars. Now teaching college classes was really a part-time activity for Goddard. He continued to conduct experiments with rockets. One experiment proved that a rocket with a solid fuel propulsion could actually accelerate in vacuum, but Goddard needed to make something that could reach space first. And for that, he needed funding because rocket science is not cheap. In the 19 teens, Goddard wrote to the Smithsonian with a proposal for a grant. The proposal basically said he could develop a more efficient, solid rocket apparatus capable of reaching the upper atmosphere. Equipped with meteorological instruments to study the weather. I did mention earlier how devastating hurricanes were a hundred years ago. In the proposal, he outlines ways to get more thrust out of the reaction mass. And even a multi-stage rocket Goddard then went a step further around 1918, he proposed to the US military the application of his rockets for warfare. This was during the Great War. Think about it. A rocket equipped with explosives that could be launched over no man's land and into the German trenches. The US Army and Navy both sent grant money for research and development. The combined funds from all parties was about 10 to 15,000. That's equal to 480,000 in today's money inflation, man. Now what Goddard and his small team came up with was some of the best performing solid fuel rockets that ever existed. But think about these rockets on the scale of a rocket propelled grenade or an RPG. Interestingly, the man who later developed the bazooka worked under Goddard. His name was Clarence Nichols Hickman. However, this is far short of reaching space, the moon or Mars the improved solid reaction mass and improved nozzle efficiency was not near enough and he could just not get a multi-stage charge rocket to work. Think of a firework that reignites in the air and continues to accelerate up instead of exploding. After extensive research and development. Solid reaction, mass approved in practical. Also, his grant money from the Smithsonian and the military was exhausted. By 1920, The Great War was over, so the military was not near as interested. In any event, it was time for a new approach one he wrote about decades earlier. A liquid fueled rocket engine. The beginning of the 1920s, marked many changes in Goddard's life, both of his maternal managers in his life. His mother, who was often in bad health. And his grandmother were both gone. This is when Goddard began to court a much younger woman named Esther Kisk. Intelligent, and mature for her age, and Esther was only 18 when they first met. She worked as a typist at Clark University. They got married on June 21st, 1924. Esther provided the structure Goddard her needed around his life, despite being half his age, something he needed now more than ever because in the early twenties, he and his work became famous. Around this time, one of Goddard's articles went viral, although that's not the term they would've used back then, but you get the idea. The article, a method of reaching extreme altitudes finally captured the imagination of the public. Newspapers in the US ran farfetched headlines inspired by Goddard writings. Interviews in fame followed. This article even gained a following in other countries like Germany and Russia, other like-minded figures and organizations wrote to Goddard and wanted to collaborate with him. But Goddard's ego got in the way of any partnerships. Goddard believed he was the sole authority on this subject, and rocketry was his project. This led to some not so friendly back and forth with another pioneer of aerospace theories from Transylvania His name was Herman Julius Oberth. I'll be bringing him up again in a future episode. This jealousy and power struggle for credit in rocketry was just another distraction. Goddard needed to find more funding and get back to work to see if Liquid Fuel was the answer. Which he finally did. Let's get to March of 1926. The date is March 16th, 1926. It was a Tuesday picture, a cold snow covered Massachusetts farm field. The wind was calm, the sky was clear. An ordinary setting for an extraordinary experiment. This was Goddard's Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn. About 15 minutes south of Worcester, a secluded place for a test launch of a rocket engine with an unproven power plant of gasoline along with liquid oxygen and hydrogen abbreviated as LOX. LOX. The Rocketeer, who already had many patents to his name, was accompanied by technicians, Henry Sacks and Percy Roope. Esther also was there to film and take pictures. The apparatus looked like this. The rocket engine itself was suspended by a metal pipe framework that doubled as a fuel lines that fed both liquid oxygen and hydrogen, along with the gasoline, The tanks were held below the nozzle in the framework. And asbestos covered. Cone shielded the tanks from the rocket engine exhaust column. The apparatus stood at a height of around 10 feet. Sacks, lit the igniter. And then the alcohol lamp underneath the LOX tank, Goddard released a valve sending pressurized oxygen into the fuel system. This along with the heat from the alcohol lamp, forced the oxygen and gasoline into the combustion chamber. It happened. Goddard said the flame came out and there was a steady roar after a number of seconds, it rose slowly until it cleared the frame and then at express train speed. Curving over to the left and striking the ice and snow. Still going at a rapid rate. He also said jokingly that the rocket announced with roar. I think I'll get the hell out of here. The rocket, if you can call it that, reached an elevation of 41 feet before arching over into the frozen ground, 184 feet away from the launch site. Its speed was clocked with a stopwatch at 60 miles per hour. This farm field might as well be the equivalent to the beaches near Kittyhawk, North Carolina. However, this contraption looks like it has less in common with a Saturn V rocket than the first Wright flyer had with a Boeing 7, 4, 7, but the basic functions of the rocket engine from the fuel of the LOX fed into a combustion chamber to the flame from the nozzle are the same. How many different rockets can you think of that have launched a human being into outer space that used a liquid reaction mass of LOX? Here are a few. The Redstone, the Titan II, the Saturn 1-B, the Saturn V, the Semyorka R-7. Even newer ones like the Falcon 9, new Glen or Changzheng. They're all liquid fuel rocket engines. I cannot think of any solid fuel rockets that has launched a human into outer space. Now, there were two solid rocket boosters attached to the external fuel tanks of the space shuttle launch system. Although the two solid rocket boosters assisted the space shuttle launch system in reaching a certain altitude before breaking off. The space shuttle's, liquid fuel, rocket engines did the rest to ascend and obtain orbit. The same concept goes for Artemis. Now, solid fuel rockets have been used since the ancient battlefields of China. In modern times. Giant, solid rocket ICBMs like the Minutemen were developed during the Cold War. Honestly, Minutemen is such an awesome and fitting name for that missile. Liquid fuel rockets were developed and used for warfare as well. However, using them to get to space was an unexpected and awesome development. Although solid fuel is better for use as a weapon because it can be stored in the chamber of the missile ready for lunch. Storable liquid reaction mass does exist, but proved to be very volatile. Sergei Korolev, who I have profiled in other episodes, did not like such mixtures and called one such Liquid Rocket Fuel Satan's cocktail. But let's get back to Goddard here. He was not a man without controversy from his cult of personality to his selfishness towards rocketry, Goddard, was known to claim that he explored that first to any sound idea by others related to rocket science or engineering. Some say he even stole ideas from his colleagues and even some of his students for patents. However, his work in rocketry set the stage for those who had later dawn this space age. Despite how primitive Goddard and his team's contraption was this test launch on March 16th, 1926, the first of a liquid fueled rocket engine had far reaching implications. That is why this date 100 years ago should stand among those other aerospace events I mentioned earlier. If you'd like to learn more about Robert Hutchings Goddard, then I recommend the book Rocket Man by David a Clary. Or follow the Mansplaneing podcast for more. Years after this historic launch, Goddard test launch, more conventional rockets using LOX. He even went to work for the US Army developing rockets for a very interesting and unexpected application. That's a story for another time. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, there's always a light at the end of the runway.

Paula 30:05

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