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Robert Hutchings Goddard

Rockets

• Robert Goddard pioneered modern rocketry and space flight and founded a whole field of science and engineering.
• Goddard's interest in rockets began in 1899, when he was 17. As early as 1908 he conducted static tests with small solid-fuel rockets at Worcester Tech, and in 1912 he developed the detailed mathematical theory of rocket propulsion.
• In 1915 he proved that rocket engines could produce thrust in a vacuum and therefore make space flight possible.
• He succeeded in developing several types of solid-fuel rockets to be fired from handheld or tripod-mounted launching tubes, which were the basis of the bazooka and other powerful rocket weapons of World War II. At the time of his death Goddard held 214 patents in rocketry.