75. National Academy of Sciences, “Memoir of Lewis Morris Rutherfurd,” National Academy of Sciences: Biographical Memoires, vol. 3 (Washington, DC, 1895), pp. 417–441; Warner, D., “Lewis M. Rutherfurd: Pioneer Astronomical Photographer and Spectroscopist,” Technology and Culture 12 (1971), pp. 190–216.
76. Abrams, P., “Henry Fitz, American Telescope Maker,” Journal of the Antique Telescope Society 6 (1994).
77. Barker, G., Memoir of Henry Draper: 1837–1882 (New York, 1888).
78. Loomis, “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” p. 46.
79. A comprehensive description of American telescope builders and their development falls outside of the scope of this study. American astronomical observatories provided a source of domestic demand that stimulated technical progress among the builders, whose activities then served as enablers of further observatory projects as well as popular astronomy more generally. By the end of the century, American telescope makers, notably the firm Alvan Clark & Sons, were among the best in the world, particularly in the domain of larger refractors. While astronomers and their patrons were often the motivating forces behind American observatories, it was the telescope builders who provided the technical expertise to construct them. Intrinsic motivations were core to telescope making as well: Ambrose Swasey—one half of the precision machining partnership of Warner & Swasey, whose telescope-making careers included building the mechanisms and mountings for the telescopes of the Lick, Yerkes, McDonald, and Dominion Astrophysical Observatories—said of their business, “we get our money out of machinery and our glory out of telescopes.” For more on nineteenth-century American telescope makers, see Abrahams, P., “Henry Fitz, American Telescope Maker,” Journal of the Antique Telescope Society 6 (Summer 1994), pp. 6–10; Bell, T., “In the Shadow of Giants: Forgotten Nineteenth-Century Telescope Makers and Their Crucial Role in Popular Astronomy,” Griffith Observer 50, no. 9 (September 1986), pp. 3–14; Bell, T., “Money and Glory,” The Bent of Tau Beta Pi (Winter 2006), pp. 13–20; Bagdasarian, N., “Amasa Holcomb: Yankee Telescope Maker,” Sky & Telescope, June 1986, pp. 620–622; Brashear, J., John A. Brashear: The Autobiography of a Man Who Loved the Stars, ed. W. L. Scaife (New York, 1924); Preston, F. W., and McGrath Jr., W. J., Holcomb, Fitz, and Peate: Three 19th Century American Telescope Makers (Washington, DC, 1962); Warner, D. J., and Ariail, R. B., Alvan Clark & Sons: Artists in Optics (Richmond, 1995).
80. Putnam, W. L., The Explorers of Mars Hill: A Centennial History of Lowell Observatory 1894–1994 (Flagstaff, 1994), p. 12.
81. See Lowell, P., Mars and Its Canals (New York, 1906) and Mars as the Abode of Life (New York, 1908).
82. Strauss, D., Percival Lowell: The Culture and Science of a Boston Brahmin (Cambridge, 2001), p. 54.
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid., p. 55.
85. Joy, J., ed., “The Giver of the Perkins Telescope,” Christian Advocate 97, no. 26 (1922), pp. 806–807.
86. Crump, C., “The Perkins Observatory of the Ohio Wesleyan University,” Popular Astronomy 37, no. 10 (1929), p. 552. The telescope pier and instruments cost $93,580; the sixty-one-inch mirror, $33,316; the mounting, $9,000; the building, $152,000.
87. Evans, D. S., and Mulholland, J. D., Big and Bright: A History of the McDonald Observatory (Austin, 1986), pp. 9–11.
88. Ibid., p. 20.
89. Florence, R., The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope (New York, 1994), p. 26.
90. “Recollections of Childhood,” August 5, 1935, box 92, Biographical Notes, Papers of George Ellery Hale, Archives, California Institute of Technology.
91. Ibid.
92. Osterbrock, D., Pauper & Prince: Ritchey, Hale, & Big American Telescopes (Tucson, 1993), p. 22.
93. Ibid., p. 25.
94. Ibid., p. 68.
95. Hendrick, B., The Age of Big Business: A Chronicle of the Captains of Industry (New Haven, CT, 1921), p. 126.
96. Miller, H., “Astronomical Entrepreneurship in the Gilded Age,” Astronomical Society of the Pacific Leaflet, no. 479 (May 1969), p. 3.
97. Wright, H., Warnow, J., and Weiner, C., The Legacy of George Ellery Hale (Cambridge, 1972), p. 19.
98. Wright, H., Explorer of the Universe (New York, 1966), pp. 98–99.
99. Lerner, R., Astronomy Through the Telescope (Toronto, 1982), p. 104.
100. Miller, Dollars for Research, p. 110.
101. “Yerkes Will Founds Gallery and Hospital,” New York Times, January 3, 1906, p. 1; Franch, J., Robber Baron: The Life of Charles Tyson Yerkes (Chicago, 2006), p. 323.
102. Miller, Dollars for Research, p. 109.
103. Osterbrock, Pauper & Prince, p. 34.
104. Carnegie, A., “Trust Deed by Andrew Carnegie,” The Carnegie Institution of Washington: Founded by Andrew Carnegie (Washington, DC, 1902), p. 8.
105. Osterbrock, Pauper & Prince, p. 71.
106. Florence, The Perfect Machine, p. 37.
107. Carnegie, A., The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays (New York, 1901), p. 25.
108. Plotkin, H., “Edward C. Pickering and the Endowment of Scientific Research in America, 1877–1918,” ISIS 69 (1978), p. 51.
109. Wright, Explorer of the Universe, p. 253.
110. Hale, G., “The Possibilities of Large Telescopes,” Harper’s Monthly 79 (1928), p. 640.
111. Carnegie Institution, Carnegie Institution of Washington: Year Book No. 20, 1921 (Washington, DC, 1922), p. 40. The year 1912, the middle year between the 1906 commencement of work on the mirror blank and before the 1917 completion of the hundred-inch reflector, is used as the base year for calculation. For comparison, the next highest capital expenditure for the Carnegie Institution was for its “Department of Terrestrial Magnetism” at a cost of $443,000.
112. Letter from Carnegie to Hale, November 19, 1906, and Letter from Hale to Carnegie, December 11, 1906, box 10, “Andrew Carnegie,” Papers of George Ellery Hale, Archives, California Institute of Technology.
113. Letter to Carnegie from Hale, May 5, 1910, in ibid.
114. Letter to Carnegie from Assistant, July 2, 1910, in ibid.
115. Letter to Hale from Carnegie, February 14, 1913, in ibid.
116. Letter to Mrs. Carnegie from Hale, September 21, 1921, in ibid.
117. Undated and unidentified newspaper clipping, in ibid.
118. Carnegie, A., Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (London, 1920), pp. 261–262.
119. Van Helden, A., “Building Large Telescopes,” in Astrophysics and Twentieth Century Astronomy to 1950, Part A: The General History of Astronomy, ed. O. J. Gingerich (New York, 1984), p. 138.
120. Geiger, R., To Advance Knowledge: The Growth of American Research Universities, 1900–1940 (New Jersey, 2004), p. 162.
121. Hale, “The Possibilities of Large Telescopes,” p. 639.
122. Ibid.
123. Wright, Explorer of the Universe, p. 390.
124. Florence, The Perfect Machine, pp. 91, 388. Given that it would be over twenty years until the project was completed, it is difficult, without a more complete expenditure time series, to state a precise equivalent value today. The 2015 GDP-ratio equivalent value of using the 1949 end date would be $433 million, and using 1934, the year of site selection and mirror casting, yields a value of $2.07 billion, due to the economic collapse during the Depression.
125. Wright, Explorer of the Universe, p. 390.
126. Letter from Rose to Hale, November 7, 1928, and Letter from Rose to Hale, November 14, 1929, box 35, “Wickliffe Rose 1924–1932,” Papers of George Ellery Hale, Archives, California Institute of Technology.
127. Fosdick, R., John D. Rockefeller, Jr.: A Portrait (New York, 1956), p. 373.
128. Florence, The Perfect Machine, p. 73.
129. Osterbrock, Pauper & Prince, p. 227.
130. Letter from Hale to Robinson, April 8, 1915, box 35, “Henry M. Robinson 1915–1937,” Papers of George Ellery Hale, Archives, California Institute of Technology.
131. Letter from
Robinson to Hale, December 29, 1923, and Letter from Robinson to Hale, July 26, 1929, in ibid.
132. Florence, The Perfect Machine.
133. Edmondson, F., Aura and Its US National Observatories (Cambridge, 1997).
134. Browne, M., “Giant Telescope Prepares to Take Its First Look Skyward,” New York Times, January 9, 1990, p. C1.
135. Nielsen, W., Golden Donors (New York, 1985), p. 234.
136. Lankford, J., American Astronomy (Chicago, 1997).
137. Plotkin, H., “Edward C. Pickering and the Endowment of Scientific Research in America, 1877–1918,” p. 46.
138. Stroobant, P., Delvosal, J., Philippot, H., Delport, E., and Meelin, E., Les Observatories Astronomiques et les Astronomes (Brussels, 1907), pp. 3–4.
139. McKenney, A., “What Women Have Done for Astronomy,” Popular Astronomy 12 (1904), pp. 171–182.
140. Hale, G., and Keeler, J., eds., “Catherine Wolfe Bruce,” Astrophysical Journal 11 (1900), p. 168.
141. Ibid., p. 116.
3. Spaceflight, Millionaires, and National Defense
1. Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, Congressional Recognition of Goddard Rocket and Space Museum Roswell, New Mexico (Washington, DC, 1970), p. 24.
2. This chapter builds on the extensive scholarship of many previous authors who have investigated the life and works of Robert Goddard. Particularly, Clary, D., Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age (New York, 2003); Lehman, M., This High Man: The Life of Robert H. Goddard (New York, 1963); Pendray, E. G., “Pioneer Rocket Development in the United States,” Technology and Culture 4, no. 4 (1963); Dewey, A. P., Robert Goddard: Space Pioneer (Boston, 1962); Verral, C. S., Robert Goddard: Father of the Space Age (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1963); Rhodes, R., “The Ordeal of Robert Hutchings Goddard: ‘God Pity a One-Dream Man,’ ” American Heritage 31, no. 4 (1980); Hacker, B. C., “Robert H. Goddard and the Origins of Space Flight,” in Technology in America: A History of Individuals and Ideas, ed. C. W. Pursell Jr. (Cambridge, MA, 1981); Hunley, J. D., “The Enigma of Robert H. Goddard,” Technology and Culture 36, no. 2 (1995), pp. 327–350; Durant, F. C., “Robert H. Goddard and the Smithsonian Institution,” in First Steps Toward Space, ed. F. C. Durant III and G. S. James (Washington, DC, 1974), pp. 57–69; Durant, F. C., “Robert H. Goddard: Accomplishments of the Roswell Years, 1930–1941,” in History of Rocketry and Astronautics, ed. K. R. Lattu, vol. 8 (San Diego, 1989), pp. 317–341; Durant, F. C., and Winter, F., “Goddard and Lindbergh: The Role of Charles A. Lindbergh in the Rocketry Career of Robert H. Goddard,” in History of Rocketry and Astronautics, ed. M. L. Ciancone, vol. 33 (San Diego, 2010), pp. 31–59; Siddiqi, A. A., “Deep Impact: Robert Goddard and the Soviet ‘Space Fad’ of the 1920s,” History and Technology 20, no. 2 (2004).
3. Goddard, R., The Papers of Robert H. Goddard, vol. 1 (New York, 1970), pp. 7–8.
4. Serviss, G. P., Edison’s Conquest of Mars (Boston, 1898).
5. Goddard, The Papers of Robert H. Goddard, vol. 1, p. 7.
6. Serviss, Edison’s Conquest of Mars, cap. 3.
7. Kuznets, S., Capital in the American Economy (Princeton, 1961), p. 557.
8. Panama Canal Authority, “A History of the Panama Canal: French and American Construction Efforts,” http://www.pancanal.com/eng/history/history/end.html.
9. Lehman, This High Man, p. 17.
10. Ibid., p. 29.
11. Goddard, The Papers of Robert H. Goddard, vol. 1, p. 117.
12. Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 1611–1612.
13. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 420.
14. Wilford, J., “The Moon May Have Water, and Many New Possibilities,” New York Times, December 4, 1996; Leary, W., “NASA Plans Permanent Moon Base,” New York Times, December 5, 2006.
15. Goddard’s multiple-charge solid-fuel-rocket design was unique: it was a rocket that was to be fed dozens of cartridges of solid-fuel propellant that would be expended and then discarded in sequence by an automated loading device in flight. The practical difficulties of making this device work ultimately led Goddard to abandon the years of research and development that he had expended on it and to focus instead on liquid-fuel propulsion.
16. Goddard, The Papers of Robert H. Goddard, vol. 1, pp. 161, 166.
17. Even his long-standing assistant and instrument maker, Nils Riffolt, was unaware that his master’s thesis, “A Study in the Absorption of Radiant Energy,” helped provide validation for Goddard’s plans for using solar energy for in-space propulsion. Ibid., pp. 38–39.
18. Ibid., pp. 126–127.
19. Ibid., p. 164.
20. Ibid., p. 171.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., p. 175.
23. Ibid., p. 174.
24. See Smithson, J., “Will of James Smithson,” in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 17 (Washington, DC, 1880), pp. 1–2.
25. Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, pp. 175, 181.
26. Ibid., p. 190. Thomas Hodgkins, a New York candy-store magnate, had provided the Smithsonian with $200,000 in 1891 with specifications that $100,000 of it be dedicated to research on the nature of the properties of air. The Smithsonian’s generous interpretation of Hodgkins’s intent to include the development of high-altitude rocketry is an example of how loosely defined funding criteria for philanthropic institutions can enable the funding of innovative projects.
27. Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, p. 194. It would also be these attributes that would be touted by the promoters of the V-2 and that were realized by it in the Second World War.
28. Ibid., p. 194.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., p. 195.
31. Ibid., p. 196.
32. Ibid., pp. 199–201.
33. See U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Military Affairs, Subcommittee on Aviation, United Air Service: Hearing Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Military Affairs, 66th Cong., 2nd sess. (1921), pp. 191–206; Van der Linden, F. R., Airlines and Air Mail: The Post Office and the Birth of the Commercial Aviation Industry (Lexington, 2002), p. 78.
34. Goddard, R., “Diary, August 28, 1917,” Goddard Digital Collection, Robert Hutching Goddard Library, Clark University, Worcester, MA; Dunwoody, H., Notes, Problems and Laboratory Exercises in Mechanics, Sound, Light, Thermo-Mechanics and Hydraulics Prepared for Use in Connection with the Course in Natural and Experimental Philosophy at the United States Military Academy (New York, 1917).
35. Goddard, “Diary, August 28, 1917.”
36. Ibid.
37. Goddard, “Diary, October 24, 1917,” and “Diary, November 11, 1917.”
38. Goddard, “Diary, November 12, 1917,” and “Diary, November 13, 1917.”
39. Goddard, “Diary, December 5, 1917”; House of Representatives, Committee on Military Affairs, Subcommittee on Aviation, United Air Service, p. 191.
40. Goddard, “Diary, January 17–22, 1918.”
41. Walcott had sent Stratton, the director of the National Bureau of Standards, Goddard’s first proposal for evaluation. Edgar Buckingham, a physicist at the bureau, who acted with Abbot as the supervisory committee for Goddard’s work during the war, had performed the actual evaluation.
42. For more on this and Squier, see Gross, C., “George Owen Squier and the Origins of American Military Aviation,” Journal of Military History 54, no. 3 (1990), pp. 281–306.
43. Ibid., p. 291.
44. The report of Abbot and Buckingham emphasized the long-range aspects, noting that “enormous distances, far outranging rifled cannon, can be reached” and suggesting that a 120-mile range—roughly half of the V-2’s operational range—might be possible; Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, p. 211.
45. Neufeld, M. J., The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile (New York, 1995), pp. 41–53; Bainbridge, W. S., The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study (New York, 1976), pp. 45–85.
46. Gross, C., “George Owen Squier,” p. 300.
&n
bsp; 47. Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, pp. 226, 249, 277.
48. Goddard, “Diary, August 28, 1917.”
49. Goddard, “Diary, February 13, 1917.”
50. Goddard, “Diary, November 21, 1917.”
51. Washburn, C., Industrial Worcester (Worcester, 1917), p. 283.
52. Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, p. 205; Goddard, “Diary, December 15–January 15, 1917.”
53. Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, pp. 230–232.
54. Ibid., p. 232n.; Goddard, “Diary, July 25–26, 1919,” and “Diary, January 16, 1920.”
55. Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, p. 232.
56. Ibid., p. 294.
57. Ibid., pp. 255, 265–276.
58. Ibid., p. 254.
59. Ibid., pp. 300–301.
60. Ibid., pp. 301–302.
61. Lehman, This High Man, pp. 121–123.
62. Unmentioned in Lehman; one sentence in Clary, Rocket Man, p. 84.
63. Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, pp. 244, 253, 278, 283.
64. Ibid., p. 441.
65. Ibid., pp. 443–444.
66. Ibid., p. 446.
67. Ibid., p. 447.
68. Goddard, “Diary, August 7, 1920.”
69. Goddard, “Diary, November 16, 1920,”; Lehman, This High Man, pp. 124–125; Goddard, “Diary, April 9–19, 1923.”
70. Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, p. 488.
71. Goddard, “Diary, February 18, 1923,” and “Diary, May 8–11, 1923”; Lehman, This High Man, p. 122; Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, pp. 488, 496.
72. For contemporary accounts of the effects of gas attacks, see; Fries, A., and West, C., Chemical Warfare (New York, 1921), pp. 13–14; New York Times, Current History: The European War, vol. 12 (New York, 1917), p. 125.
73. Goddard, The Papers of Robert Goddard, vol. 1, pp. 244, 432, 465.
74. Oberth also reports that his position with a field ambulance unit in the Austro-Hungarian Army also led to other early space experiments. Apparently, his position allowed him to study pharmacy, which led him to experiment with the psychotropic substance scopolamine, an extract from the plant henbane, and to immerse himself in a tub of water in order to simulate weightlessness. Hartl, H., Herman Oberth—Vorkaempfer Der Weltraumfahr (Hanover, 1958), p. 77; Walters, H., Hermann Oberth: Father of Space Travel (New York, 1962), p. 33.
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