143 years ago today, on October 5, 1882 (August 24, 1882), Robert Goddard, "the father of modern rocket technology" was born. Robert Goddard Robert Hudgens Goddard (RobertHutchingsGoddard, October 5, 1882 - August 10, 1945) was an American professor, engineer, and inventor of liquid rockets. He launched the world's first liquid rocket on March 16, 1926. Goddard received 214 patents, 83 of which were granted during his lifetime. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, established in 1959, is named after him. The Goddard Crater on the moon is also named after him. Goddard Robert Goddard and his first liquid rocket research results. He began to study liquid rockets in 1920. On March 16, 1926, he successfully launched the world's first liquid rocket at Ward Farm in Massachusetts. The successful test of the V-2 rocket in Germany has been since 1942. He is the earliest inventor of the rocket engine in the United States and is recognized as the father of modern rocket technology. On March 16, 1926, in Auburn, Massachusetts, on the ice-covered grassland, Goddard launched the first liquid rocket in human history. The rocket is about 3.4 meters long, weighs 4.6 kilograms at launch, and weighs 2.6 kilograms empty. The flight lasted about 2.5 seconds, with a maximum altitude of 12.5 meters and a flight distance of 56 meters. This was a remarkable success and announced the birth of modern rocket technology. On December 30, 1930, a new liquid rocket developed by Goddard was successfully launched, reaching an altitude of 610 meters, a flight distance of 300 meters, and a flight speed of 800 kilometers per hour, breaking the previous rocket flight record. In 1931, he first adopted the program control system still used in modern rockets in rocket launch tests. In 1932, he pioneered the use of a gas rudder to control the flight direction of a rocket. In the same year, the problem of controlling the flight attitude of a rocket with a gyroscope was solved for the first time. In 1935, Goddard developed a liquid rocket with a maximum range of 20 kilometers and a speed of 1,103 kilometers per hour, the first time a man-made aircraft exceeded the speed of sound. Goddard received a total of 214 patents, 83 of which were granted during his lifetime. In fact, the United States is where modern rocket technology really took off, and Goddard is also recognized as the father of modern rocket technology. Personal Introduction Robert Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He was the eldest son of the family. His younger brother died due to a spinal deformity. As American cities began to use electricity in the 1880s, the young Goddard became interested in science, especially engineering and industrial technology. His father taught the carpet in his house how to generate static electricity, and at the age of 5 or 6, Goddard's imagination began to sprout. Goddard believed that if a zinc battery could somehow store static electricity, he could jump higher. His mother warned that if he succeeded, he would "never get out and never come back." So Goddard stopped experimenting. Dr. Robert Goddard at Clark University He became interested in space after reading Wells' science fiction novel "Interstellar War" at the age of 16. On October 19, 1899, he set his career on the study of rockets. Goddard's interest in aerodynamics led him to study papers published in the scientific journal Smithsonian by the American physicist Samuel Langley, in which he wrote that birds used different forces to flap their wings and thus rotate through the air. Goddard, a teenager, was inspired by these articles to observe how swallows cleverly move their wings to control flight. He pointed out that birds apparently manipulate their tail feathers for flight, which he called "avian ailerons." He disagreed with some of Langley's conclusions and wrote a letter to Nicholas magazine in 1901 expressing his ideas. But the editor, St. Nicholas, refused to publish Goddard's letter, arguing that birds follow a certain amount of intelligence to fly, and "machines do not act on this intelligence." Goddard disagreed, arguing that a man could control a flying machine with his own intelligence. Goddard entered Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WorcesterPolytechnicInstitute) in 1904 and worked as a laboratory assistant and tutor. He later joined the SAE fraternity and met high school classmate Miriam Olmstead. He and Miriam Olmstead were later engaged, but broke up in 1909. He received a bachelor's degree in physics in 1908, a master's degree from Clark University in 1910, and a doctorate a year later. He became a researcher at Princeton University in 1912, conducting research at Palmer's Physics Laboratory. While still a student, Goddard wrote a paper proposing a way to "balance an airplane." His idea was published in Scientific American in 1907. Goddard later wrote in his diary that he believed the paper was the first in human history to propose a way to "automatically stabilize an aircraft in flight." Goddard launched the first liquid rocket in 1926 from Auburn, Massachusetts. The launch site later became an officially designated National Historic Landmark (NationalHistoricLandmark) by the U.S. government. Goddard died of throat cancer in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 10, 1945. Robert Goddard and his Rockets Robert Goddard and his Rockets Robert Goddard and his Rockets Goddard's life was judged by the outside world to be a bumpy and heroic life. The reports, articles and extensive notes he left behind were a great asset. Of his work Robert Goddard and his rockets, von Braun once said: "In the history of rockets, Dr. Goddard is unrivaled. He was ahead of everyone in the design, construction and launch of liquid rockets, which paved the way for the exploration of space. While Goddard was doing his greatest work, those of us who came after in rockets and space were only beginning to be toddlers." But his life was lonely and incomprehensible. The brave Goddard was not discouraged, and did a lot of work in theory and practice to show those who doubted his vision that the entire future space industry would be based on rocket technology. Therefore, he deserved to be called "the father of modern rockets". Although Goddard successfully launched the world's first liquid rocket, it did not initially attract the attention and support of the US government, so by the time of his death, American rocket technology was still far behind Germany. It was not until 1961 that the Soviet cosmonaut Gagarin went to heaven that the United States published the full report of Goddard's 30 years of research on liquid rockets. Later, he was honored as the "father of rockets" in the United States, and one of NASA's space flight centers was named the "Goddard Space Research Center." His honor reached its pinnacle. He was posthumously awarded the first Lewis Hill Space Medal, and a major NASA base was named the Goddard Space Center in his honor.