Goddard, Robert H. (1882-1945)
American physicist
Robert H. Goddard was foremost among the first generation of rocket and space pioneers. Goddard not only contributed to space flight theory, but also engaged over most of his adult life in the actual development of rockets. As a result, he is credited with launching the world's first liquid-propellant rocket. He developed and patented a large number of innovations in rocket technology that were later used in the much larger rockets and missiles employed by the Germans during World War II and, thereafter, by the United States' and Soviet Union's missile and space programs, among others. Paradoxically, Goddard's influence upon modern rocketry was not as great as it would have been had he been less a solitary inventor and more inclined to publish his findings in scientific journals and elsewhere.
Robert Hutchings Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Nahum Danford Goddard, himself something of an inventor, and Fannie Louise Hoyt Goddard, the daughter of a machine knife manufacturer for whom her husband worked at the time of their marriage. Of modest means but old New England stock, Goddard's parents had a second son who died in infancy. Goddard himself was prone to illness and fell behind in school, compensating with self-education.
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