Although the resultant headlines—such as WINDY CITY CAPITALISTS MAY FINANCE WORK ON ROCKET TO REACH MOON and CHICAGO IS READY TO PUSH ROCKET TO MOON—as well as the secondary literature suggest that this was a significant event with serious promise, the poster for the evening tells a slightly different story.106 For example, the largest text on the poster proudly proclaims that the event was LADIES’ NIGHT at the Chicago chapter of the American Association of Engineers, with Goddard listed as part of the night’s program of “Speakers—Movies—Entertainment—Dancing” and the bottom line imploring “Show Your Wife, Sister or Sweetheart What Chicago Chapter Is Doing For Its Members. EVERYBODY COME!”107 This was not an auspicious occasion for a spaceflight fund-raising pitch, but Goddard was relatively inexperienced and public speeches were a rarity for him. That he would find himself engaging in his most fervent fund-raising talk at such an event is telling of his inexperience and the difficulty he would have in navigating the world of public fund-raising.
A further factor complicating Goddard’s efforts was his tendency to overpromise before he had acquired the resources to deliver. Through April, Goddard pushed hard to find support, visiting polar explorer Admiral Byrd and Alexander Graham Bell, who, in addition to developing his own inventions, had been a significant early supporter of aeronautics.108 He also visited the National Geographic Society with Abbot and, while there, worked with them to make an ill-advised public announcement that a launch would occur on the Fourth of July—despite not having secured any funding.109 The results were headlines reading GODDARD ROCKET TO SHOOT IN JULY followed by embarrassing postponements, first to August and then indefinitely.110 It does not seem to have occurred to Goddard that, in announcing that a launch was already forthcoming as a fait accompli, he was limiting the interest of people who might have been interested in funding the event.
Although the press coverage of Goddard’s “moon-going rocket” was extensive—four folders are required in the Clark Archive for Goddard’s press clippings from 1920—there is almost no mention of the military implications of Goddard’s rocket. This is because Goddard, whose repeated interviews seeded the information for the articles, did not mention them publicly during this time. Although it was known that Goddard’s rocket had been developed under the patronage of the War Department during the First World War, Goddard spoke solely of its peaceable uses and the press largely followed his lead.111 Even when he became desperate for funding, he continued to maintain that the only value of the rocket was to science.112 Why would he not have discussed the valuable military implications of his rocket when trying to raise funds publicly? One explanation is that, since Goddard’s objective was always spaceflight, with military funds only a means to that end, perhaps he simply hoped that the world’s enthusiasm for space travel might be adequate motivation to assure the necessary funding support. It had worked for Jules Verne’s Baltimore Gun Club. The American Rocket Society would later labor under a similar misconception—with George Pendray noting that he and the society believed “that a few public meetings and some newspaper declarations were all that would be necessary to bring forth adequate public support for the space-flight program.”113
Another more subtle reason for Goddard’s reticence to speak of military applications in his immediate postwar funding campaign is hinted at in one of the few negative commentaries that appeared in the press, entitled GODDARD’S ROCKET IN WAR. In it, the author found it “rather surprising” that there had been so little “discussion of uses in war for Prof. Goddard’s multiple-rocket” given that it would “make nothing at all of the earth’s distances” and “with it continents could make war on each other from their own shores”; the article ended with a hearty “on with the war-averting league of nations!”114 The Great War had left the world reeling from its atrocities, and there was little enthusiasm to contemplate further conflict so shortly after its end. If Goddard had publicly tried to highlight his rocket’s military applications in 1920, as he frequently did in private, he might well have been labeled a warmonger and his bid for public funding would have been almost certain to fail. He would have to wait until American enthusiasm for armaments again increased before he could publicly discuss the military implications of his invention. Until that happened, he would continue to state that the sole applications of his rocket were scientific, in an effort to raise funds on that merit alone.
By September of 1920, Goddard felt he had exhausted his options and was candid with the press about his inability to solve the financial problem of spaceflight. To The Washington Times he confided, “ ‘To tell you the truth,’ said Prof. Goddard, ‘I have been terribly cramped for money. The Smithsonian Institution backed me for $5,000 but that is practically exhausted . . . and I really do not know where to look for the greater sum which will be necessary to make a definite trip to the moon.’ ”115 Goddard identified what he thought was the problem in a feature piece entitled ONLY “ANGEL” NEEDED FOR TRIP TO MOON: “It would cost a fortune to make a rocket to hit the moon. But wouldn’t it be worth a fortune? The great pity is that I cannot commercialize my idea. If I could rant of a 100 percent return in forty-five days, I’d have been financed long ago. But, unfortunately, the proposed rocket is worth little save to the world of science.”116 With no “angels” visible, the newspapers were soon trying to defensively reassure an interested public that “that earth-to-the-moon scheme has by no means been abandoned.”117 Eventually, however, even the Worcester Evening Gazette had turned on Goddard, flatly declaring in a headline that GODDARD’S ROCKET IS NOT PRACTICAL.118 As it became clear that no Moon trip was imminent, general interest in Goddard and his Moon rocket subsided until the subject was almost out of the press altogether. Months later, however, a small group of “angels” finally appeared—in the form of Clark University’s president Wallace Atwood and its Board of Trustees.
In June of 1921, Clark University provided Goddard with a critical grant of $2,500. This support—along with another $1,000 grant the following year and a salary increase to $2,500 plus $1,000 for assistants, apparatus, and supplies—was of critical importance for Goddard, as it enabled his final tests on the multiple-charge rocket and allowed him to pursue the development of the liquid-fuel-rocket engine on which he would work for the remainder of his life.119 Goddard had discussed the matter of support with Atwood earlier in April and prepared a report for the board with a supporting letter from Walcott. Goddard’s application laid specific emphasis on the public recognition that would come to the university from his endeavors—effectively appealing to the desire to signal Clark’s commitment to quality research: “In view of the fact that this work promises to establish a new era in investigations at very high altitudes, and also that it was begun experimentally and has been continued for the greater part of the development at Clark University, it is believed that this request to the Trustees is not out of place, considering the recognition which will come to the University on the completion of a satisfactory demonstration.”120 The result was both short-term and long-term recognition, the first coming in the form of the morning and evening headlines: CLARK TO FINANCE GODDARD’S ROCKET: EXPERIMENTS WHICH DREW WORLDWIDE ATTENTION TO GO ON WITH THE UNIVERSITY’S AID.121 Although he continued with solid-fuel-rocket experiments for a short time at Clark and Indian Head, the numerous difficulties with the system progressively led him to withdraw from the solid-fuel line of development in favor of the liquid-fuel rocket. By the time of the first grant report to Clark in April of 1922, he had decided to devote his entire attention to this new direction.122 The age of the liquid-fuel rocket was close at hand.
Allowing that the liquid-fuel rocket may have already been close at hand in 1922, it was the publication of Hermann Oberth’s Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen in 1923 that would make it seem to the world as if it was within reach. There is good reason to consider Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen as, in the words of Arthur C. Clarke, one of the few books “that have changed the history of mankind.”123 In contrast to G
oddard’s understated rhetoric and minutely technical work, Oberth began his work with four bold propositions:
1. With the present state of scientific knowledge and the science of technology, it is possible to build machines that can rise higher than the limit of the atmosphere.
2. If perfected further, these machines can attain speeds by virtue of which—if left to themselves in ether space—they do not have to fall back to the earth’s surface again and are even able to leave the sphere of attraction of the earth.
3. Such machines can be built so that human beings (apparently without danger to health) can go up with them.
4. Under today’s economic conditions, it will pay to build such machines.124
The impact of Oberth’s work was enormous. Along with being heavily technical and mathematical, it was also significantly more literary and expansive than Goddard’s initial publication. Oberth also actively encouraged the boldest of public spaceflight speculations, with the result that a significant spaceflight movement soon developed within the Germanic-speaking countries.125
Goddard’s reaction was instant animosity, as Oberth had boldly made public many of the long-held ideas that Goddard had been purposefully keeping private, notably the importance of liquid-fuel rocketry. Goddard remained obsessed with “that German” for decades, convinced that Oberth had stolen his work. The publication of Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen, however, was in fact a significant boon to Goddard’s development program. The year 1923 had started out as a difficult one for Goddard, as Clark had ceased the grants for his rocket research and he was forced to continue with his liquid-fuel work on his own salary and lab money. The publication of Oberth’s book in May, however, generated a new wave of media attention for spaceflight, this time including concerns over the possible advantage that recent-enemy Germany might have in the technology. Goddard looked to use this to his advantage in a report—which for the first time included some of his more ambitious plans for interplanetary travel—that he sent to Clark and the Smithsonian, in which he played on the prospect of a space race with Germany: “I am not surprised that Germany has awakened to the importance and the development possibilities of the work, and I would not be surprised if it were only a matter of time before the research would become something in the nature of a race.”126 Abbot, however, was not especially moved at the time, given his now almost decade-long familiarity with Goddard’s hype and promises. He replied to Goddard that he was “consumed with impatience, and hope that you will be able to actually send a rocket up into the air some time soon. Interplanetary space would look much nearer to me after I had seen one of your rockets go up five or six miles in our own atmosphere.”127 Nonetheless, the renewed media attention had rejuvenated some interest, and Goddard secured two grants in 1924: a small grant of $190 from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and $500 from a new private fund—the Cottrell Fund—provided to the Smithsonian by prominent inventor and philanthropist Frederick Cottrell.128
Dr. Frederick Cottrell, a major figure in the development of American philanthropic support for technology research, has received little attention in the Goddard historiography, even though the use of the Cottrell Fund to support Goddard’s research is an important example of the culture of private philanthropy that enabled Goddard’s research. Cottrell’s biographical memoir, written by Vannevar Bush, the great science administrator and organizer of the Manhattan Project, focuses especially on the innovations of the simply titled organization that provided the funds to the Smithsonian—the Research Corporation.129 The Research Corporation was unique at the time, at once a business and a nonprofit entity. It was created by Cottrell and his associates donating to it their patents in the field of electrical precipitation, with the proceeds from the applied research to go to the further advancement of science and technology. It operated as a business based on the patents, but it paid no dividends to personal stockholders. Instead, its income above expenses, apart from reserves and operating capital, was expended to assist scientific and educational institutions in carrying on research.130 In 1924 the Research Corporation gave the Smithsonian $5,000 to support technological innovation, and, over the course of the next three years, with the personal approval of the president of the Research Corporation, A. A. Hamerschlag, all of it would be allocated to Goddard’s liquid-fuel-propulsion research.131 The Research Corporation, the most unsung of Goddard’s supporters, also provided him with an additional $2,500 in 1929, after the success of his flight of the first liquid-fuel rocket. Although it took a more hands-off approach than Goddard’s other funding sources, its contribution came at a critical time, and it was with its funds that the development leading to the flight of Goddard’s first liquid-fuel rocket was conducted.
As with many milestones in space exploration, that of March 16, 1926, when Goddard’s liquid-fuel rocket first left its test stand, was a simple, small step. Shielded from the distractions of publicity by his supporters at the Smithsonian, Goddard had been productive under the new grants. He reported with pleasure that he had his liquid-fuel engine working steadily in the shop in April 1924, and by March 1926, with snow still on the ground, he was ready to make his flight.132 At his Aunt Effie’s farm in rural Massachusetts, Goddard, his wife, and two assistants prepared the apparatus and recorded the event with photographs and film. Although it has been ensconced as a historic moment, his diary entry for the day was as plain as any: “Tried rocket at 2:30. It rose 41 ft, and went 184 ft, in 2.5 sec, after the lower half of nozzle had burned off. Brought materials to lab. Read Mechanics, Physics of Air, and wrote up experiment in evening.”133 The following day, however, he allowed himself a little more description: “It looked almost magical as it rose, without any appreciably greater noise or flame, as if it said, ‘I’ve been here long enough; I think I’ll be going somewhere else, if you don’t mind.’ ”134 This first small flight, and the comparable ones that shortly followed, were warmly received when reported to Abbot at the Smithsonian. Abbot remained impatient, however, for a genuine high-altitude flight. When he asked what was needed to make that happen, however, Goddard gave a serious underestimate, suggesting that at least $2,500 would be needed.135 Whether this was because Goddard knew that precisely $2,500 was left in the Cottrell Fund, which was allocated to Goddard after his note, or because this was his honest estimate is unclear. Regardless, with further private support, out of the limelight, Goddard’s development of the liquid-fuel rocket continued.
The continued Smithsonian impatience for a high-altitude flight proved to be another example of how Goddard’s development program was influenced by the requirement to make exchanges in order to receive funds. In a move that may have been spurred by an ongoing $10-million fund-raising effort by the Smithsonian, Abbot upped the pressure in responding to Goddard in June 1926: “We do not feel like embarking $2500 more in this business unless we can see our way pretty clearly to a certainty that it will lead to a high spectacular flight. . . . Hitherto, for the past two or three years, we have been supplying additional sums of $500 at a time with the expectation that each in succession would bring the matter to a climax. That is just what we do not wish to do any longer, but to go about the matter with a well-grounded assurance that it is going to bring it to a fruition, or else drop it right here.”136 This prompted Goddard to begin working on a new rocket that was twenty times larger than his earlier efforts. It was too much too soon, and after a year of work, in the summer of 1927, Goddard was forced to admit his mistake and scale down the rocket to a more manageable size, expending a substantial amount of time and effort in the process.137 In the meantime, the pressure on Goddard continued, with a direct request for a spectacular show of his rocket in conjunction with the Smithsonian fund-raising campaign: “There is no use in premature tests, but if it should happen that a successful flight was made before February 11, it would be a grand thing for the Smithsonian Institution. On that date we have a conference at the Institution, to be attended by the President of
the United States, the Cabinet, the Regents, and about forty guests of the highest eminence, to consider plans to sustain and further endow work of the Smithsonian Institution.” The Smithsonian had understood the rocket’s signaling power and looked to Goddard as Khrushchev would later look to Korolev: after the success of the first Sputnik, Khrushchev had asked Korolev whether another satellite could be launched in time for the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Even in the early days, before a major flight of a liquid-fuel rocket had been achieved, signaling demands were beginning to influence the pace and direction of rocketry development.
By 1928, the time Goddard had wasted on the large rocket meant that, although he was now making progress on the scaled-down version, his funding situation was again dire. He resumed his search for other sources of support, turning once again to the potential military applications of his invention. He enlisted Abbot to make an appeal to Congress for $10,000, citing German interests in the military development of rocketry.138 Although the appeal was unsuccessful, Abbot still provided some support to Goddard—making two extraordinary grants that year of $250 and $1,500 from the Smithsonian’s own operating funds. Goddard’s salary had also been increased to $4,000. This kept the work going but was not enough for the development program that Goddard envisioned.139 He noted in his diary at the end of 1927 the costs of Commander Byrd’s expedition to the North Pole ($240,000) and Antarctica ($500,000) and the sources of private support that had underwritten the expeditions—including Edsel Ford, Vincent Astor, John D. Rockefeller, and Rodman Wanamaker.140 He also entertained the prospect of engaging industry and, in the process, formed an interesting personal connection to the Apollo program. In September, one of Goddard’s former graduate students at Clark had contacted him about the undefined potential interest of his company in Goddard’s work. This student was the aviation manager at the Standard Oil Development Company, Lieutenant Edwin E. Aldrin, whose son, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., known more popularly as “Buzz,” would be born two years later and would become the second man to walk on the surface of the Moon.141 Although the records don’t show a through line from their correspondence to Goddard’s subsequent work, Goddard nonetheless expressed in his correspondence to Aldrin his appreciation of the role of private industry in the development of spaceflight systems: “I know perfectly well that the hardheaded businessmen, who, after all, are really the ones who put research developments on a going basis, are convinced only by final accomplishments, and are not influenced by theories alone, however sound they may be.”142 Although he had yet to achieve such a “final accomplishment,” Goddard was continuing to engage private industry in preparation for the day when he expected to be able to put spaceflight on a “going basis.”
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