Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | July 22, 2019 | wbjournal.com Neil Armstrong wouldn't have set foot on the moon without Central Massachusetts' innovation, which businesses continue today as NASA eyes Mars BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor 1912: Explored practicality of using rocket propulsion to reach high altitudes, even the Moon 1914: Received U.S. patent for multi-stage rocket, among more than 200 other patents, many received posthumously 1926: Developed and fired a liquid-fueled rocket 1930: Received first two-year grant for full- time rocket research in Roswell, N.M. 1932: Developed gyro-control apparatus for rocket flight 1935: Launched first rocket to travel faster than the speed of sound 1937: Launched rocket to a height of 9,000 feet Onward & upward Robert Goddard's major contributions to space technology: Sources: NASA, Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Our mark on the MOON O n a clear early spring day in 1926, Robert God- dard went into a field in Auburn and – for the first time in recorded history – shot off a rocket, with the utilitarian liquid-fueled apparatus flying 41 feet up through the air. Few saw the flight lasting only a few seconds and no news stories recorded the event, but the Worcester-born phys- icist had just paved the way for what more than four decades later would bring Americans to the Moon. As the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon was marked on July 20, Goddard's name might not be nearly as central to the story as Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong, but that flight may not have happened if not for Goddard, who studied at Clark Univer- sity and Worcester Polytechnic Institute and was a faculty member at Clark for decades. "I'm not sure where we would be to- day without that innovation," said David Alexander, the director of the Rice Space Institute in Houston. More than 100 years aer Goddard first explored using rockets to reach the Moon, the history of space travel remains intertwined with Central Massa- chusetts, from the company designing space suits, to university research, to the college president who laid the ground- work for the next generation of human space exploration, to the startup com- panies tasked with helping NASA again achieve the Moon, as the first stop on the way to Mars. "We're kind of the Kitty Hawk of modern space exploration," said Charles Slatkin, a Clark graduate and a strong advocate of Goddard, referring to the North Carolina location where the Wright brothers had their famous first airplane flight. It all started with Goddard NASA said in a 90th anniversary commemoration of Goddard's inaugu- ral rocket none of the American space program could be possible without his work. e agency named aer God- dard its space flight center in Mary- land, where it has its largest number of scientists, engineers and others who In this Apollo 11 photo taken by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin joins him as the first men to walk on the Moon. PHOTO/NASA PHOTO/WORCESTER HISTORICAL MUSEUM

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