The Story of Robert Goddard
A biography for young readers of Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882-1945), the American pioneer of the liquid-fuel rocket. The book follows his curious boyhood in Worcester, Massachusetts, his struggle with tuberculosis, his training and career at Clark University, the first liquid-fuel rocket flight of 1926, and his test campaigns in New Mexico made possible by Guggenheim Foundation patronage and Charles Lindbergh's support. It covers his secretiveness, his technical innovations (chamber cooling, gyroscopic stabilization), and his wartime JATO work during World War II. An afterword ties his legacy to the German V-2 and to postwar astronautics. Published in Carolrhoda Books' Trailblazer Biographies series.