Heading into Roswell on our way to Texas, I was only expecting alien schlock and conspiracy theories. We toured the International UFO Museum and Research Center, photographed the alien head street lamps, and then, with Kate far less convinced of a massive government conspiracy than I and well into a state of total disinterest, happened over to the Roswell Museum and Art Center. The collection is eclectic, with the criteria for inclusion apparently being twofold: availability of the artifact and some local connection on the part of it’s originator. The museum houses a few oddball Wyeth paintings, some Georgia O’Keefe work, a Henry Mercer-esque collection of western artifacts known as the Aston Collection, and an exhibit on Dr. Robert Goddard.
We had just missed business hours at the Bradbury museum at Los Alamos, watched the sunrise beside the Trinity test site at White Sands, and were now in Roswell, New Mexico, standing in a faithful recreation of the workshop of the father of modern rocketry. Looking around me, I realized that Goddard had laid a significant amount of the groundwork for the field of rocketry, against the conventional wisdom of the scientific establishment of the time, armed only with his understanding of physics and a very simple workshop.
Beginning while still in college, Goddard pioneered research into liquid fueled rockets. His first successful test, on March 16, 1926 in Auburn, MA, reached an altitude of forty-one feet. By the end, his L-13 rocket had reached an altitude of 2.7 km. He saw applications for his work in exploration of the outer reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere, for space travel, and for the military. Though mocked at the time, he was eventually vindicated on all counts by the use of rocket motors based on his designs for each of these applications. One of his early test flights carried aloft the first scientific payload ever launched beyond the range of weather balloons. During World War II, dissection of a captured V2 rocket revealed that the Germans had drawn largely from Goddard’s published work in the design of their rockets. NASA, in acknowledging their use of Goddard’s patents in the design of engines and liquid propellants for the space program, paid a $1 million settlement to Goddard’s widow and the Guggenheim foundation (who had helped to fund Goddard’s work) in 1960. On the day after the launch of Apollo 11, the New York Times finally printed a retraction to the scathing editorial that had followed Goddard’s publication of “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes”, which was a summary of his work to date and a statement of intent for his life’s research. Goddard was vindicated and his research had become an important part of our scientific heritage.
An inventive mind, he also patented fundamental ideas later used in magnetic levitation high speed trains, an early vacuum tube capable of amplifying an electrical signal, and several early solar power concepts. He also developed the basic idea of the bazooka. All told during and after his life, Dr. Goddard was awarded two hundred and fourteen patents.
In Goddard’s workshop there stand a few work benches, some sheet metal tools, and machine tools such as a planer, several lathes of varying sizes and a few drill presses. Around the perimeter are a forge, a desk, and some cabinets and shelves. Other than the use of flat leather belt drives to power the machines, it was not largely different than my own shop. The striking difference is in the disparity in relative importance of the work produced. That realization is both humbling and inspiring. The workshop, which was recreated by the Roswell Rotary club in 1969, is preserved in the Roswell Museum and Art Center in Roswell, NM, just across the parking lot from the Visitor’s Center, and a visit comes highly recommended. Said Wernher von Braun of the museum in 1963, “This collection is not just another small-town museum but is an outstanding and historic collection of national importance in rocket history.” Goddard was one of the first scientists who believed that man could reach outer space, and this collection is a fitting tribute to his accomplishments in the single-minded pursuit of that dream. The simplicity of the workshop especially stands tribute to his great determination and insight.
