Search -
Robert Goddard and the Liquid Rocket Engine (Unlocking the Secrets of Science)
Robert Goddard and the Liquid Rocket Engine - Unlocking the Secrets of Science Author:John Bankston There were many visionaries throughout time who have dreamed about rockets. But Robert Goddard built them. A sickly boy, he spent his childhood suffering from pneumonia, bronchitis, and numerous other ailments. Illness held him back for two years in high school, and isolated him from his peers. Not surprisingly, books became his closest compa... more »nions. When he was a child, he read books by Jules Verne. As a teen, he was inspired by H.G. Wells, whose stories about a martian attack were published in the Boston Post. Goddard believed that someday men would be able to fly into outer space in rockets. So when he grew up, he tested his rockets on rural farms in Massachussetts and in the desert expanses of New Mexico despite doubt and ridicule from others. He refused to listen to the teachers and the scientists who told him the dreams of Verne and Wells were fantasies created to sell books. Goddard worked in almost complete isolation as he developed a liquid-fueled rocket. His inventions would lead a path of discovery to that summer day in 1969 when Neil Armstrong set foot upon another world.« less