dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (10/19/85)
This is the anniversary of a boy's vision -- which changed the world. More -- after this. October 19 A Boy's Vision of Space On this date in the year 1899, a boy was climbing a tree -- when he was seized with a vision of the future. Later he wrote in his diary that he'd imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device that could travel to Mars. When he came down from the tree, he wrote, his life had a purpose. That boy was Robert Goddard, born in 1882. Goddard later invented the liquid fuel rocket -- and became the foremost pioneer in United States space technology. Goddard worked alone for the most part, with whatever funds and materials he could scrounge. Especially in his early years, he suffered ridicule from the press when he proposed plans to travel into space. They called him the Moon-Rocket Man. And yet Robert Goddard endured -- to design machinery and equipment -- to work on rocket fuels -- to build rockets -- and to fly them. In all, Goddard received no fewer than 214 patents covering virtually every aspect of liquid-fuel rockets. Although Goddard didn't live to see it, rockets basically of his design ultimately powered the U.S. space program. Most of his work was done in the 1920s and '30s and '40s -- not that long ago, when you think about it. Now we're exploring the Earth from space -- and we've begun to explore the other planets in our solar system. In another 40 or 50 years, who knows? We may go beyond the vision of Robert Goddard. We may be planning the first flight to another star. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin