Father Of The Space Age (1976)

The screen news digest is presented as a service to schools by Carolina Power and Light Company today making electric power from the atom whether you light a room power scientific research energize machines to clean our environment or on the channels of communication to teach inform and entertain us electricity is making yours a brighter world a better life. This is a story of Robert Hutchings Goddard. I'm Michael Collins director of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The Smithsonian sponsored some of Dr. Goddard's very early work and so it's natural for me to be fascinated by his career. I'm also interested because as command module pilot aboard Apollo 11, I went to the moon compliments of Dr. Goddard's early research along with Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. And you have to remember that all this work took place during the 20s and 30s when spaceflight was really considered to be a crackpot's dream. But Dr. Goddard was a meticulous scientist. He kept voluminous records both still and motion picture footage and together they form a living record of his pioneering genius. >> [music] [music] >> Markers and milestones on a journey to greatness. >> [music] >> Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. >> [music] >> A memorial tower at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. [music] >> [music] >> The Marley Ranch in Roswell, New Mexico. >> [music] >> And from out of the past, historic films of Robert Hutchings Goddard, >> [music] >> who found a dream and labored a lifetime to prove the heavens are not too high. >> [music] [music] [music] >> Robert Hutchings Goddard is born on October 5th, 1882 in Worcester, Massachusetts. [music] An only child, good-looking but frail in health. He is the son of a factory superintendent. >> [music] >> Robert masters mathematics easily, a teacher says, but his work seldom includes the right answer. His mind is restless, [music] imaginative, and captivated by stories of science fiction. >> [music] >> Reading from The Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne, >> [music] >> he marvels at the idea of firing a passenger-carrying rocket into space. >> [music] [music] >> And he is fascinated by the neutral point, which a century later becomes zero [music] gravity. Studying the immortals of science, a dream is taking form. >> [music] >> At 17, Robert Goddard climbs a tree in his backyard and thinks to himself, "If only I could build a device that would fly to Mars." On that day, he says later, "My life found a purpose." Enrolling at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, he carries a straight A average and in 1908 graduates first in his class. >> [music] >> His yearbook notes prophetically, "Bob Goddard revels in the weirdest of physics." Later, he earns [music] his doctorate and joins the faculty at Clark University, where today the school library honors his memory. While teaching at Clark, Dr. Goddard obtains a grant from the Smithsonian [music] Institution to pursue his rocket research. In 1919, he publishes a progress report that contains in detail almost every basic principle in the field of rocket propulsion. >> [music] >> And then Dr. [music] Goddard goes a step beyond, suggesting a flight to the moon. He will labor for 6 years just to get his first rocket off the ground. >> [music] >> But when he does, it is one of the great scientific achievements in history. Here, on March 16th, 1926, my husband, Bob, launched the first liquid propellant rocket. In describing the flight in his notebook next day, my husband wrote, "It looked almost magical as it rose, without any appreciably greater noise or flame, as if to say, 'I've been here long enough. I think I'll be going somewhere else, if you don't mind.'" This flight lasted only 2 and 1/2 seconds. Its altitude was only 40 ft or so. Its speed was about 60 mph and it landed 184 ft away from the launching point making the total path 220 ft. None of us who saw this flight had any particular sense of destiny or very great importance. And yet this place and that flight would change the course of human history. The giant that slumbered in the liquid propellant rocket had at long last been touched with life. Man was on his way to the moon and the stars. At Fort Devens in Massachusetts, [music] a steel launching tower recalls Dr. Goddard's early flights in the 1920s. Remarkable home movies make these pioneering launches come alive. >> [music] >> Robert Goddard carries out static tests [music] and rocket flights for 3 years at Fort Devens. But by 1929, his rockets are so big and so successful >> [music] >> that they are a fire hazard and state officials order Dr. Goddard not to test them anywhere in Massachusetts. And so a year later, Dr. and Mrs. Goddard move to Roswell, New Mexico. >> [music] [music] >> Charles Lindbergh has arranged through Harry Guggenheim to have the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation finance further Goddard research. In the next 12 years, Robert Goddard labors painstakingly, [music] eagerly, successfully to turn science fiction into fact. >> [music] >> Today in Roswell, the Goddard workshop has been reconstructed by the Rotary [music] Club, and visitors can travel back 40 years to a time when rocket propulsion and space exploration >> [music] >> were considered utterly ridiculous. >> [music] >> And yet, says one worker, "Never was there so much invention with [music] so little manpower." >> [music] >> Now, a Goddard flight, >> [music] >> beginning with the arrival of the rocket at history's first launching pad. >> [music] [music] >> On this firing range in the 1930s, Robert Goddard is pioneering so many procedures that it is impossible, even today, to design, [music] build, or launch a liquid propellant rocket without infringing on a Goddard patent. >> [music] >> Across the desert, the launch crew races by car to still another space age first. Dr. Goddard's [music] blockhouse. >> [music] >> The switch is thrown, and the engine roars into life. >> [music] >> Goddard rockets are reaching supersonic speeds and carrying barometers, thermometers, and even cameras in their nose cones. >> [music] >> And to retrieve them intact, Dr. Goddard devices a means of parachute recovery. >> [music] >> Today, members of the Roswell Skyhawk Aerospace Club fly model rockets on the same firing [music] range that rumbled and shook during Dr. Goddard's historic launches. They know, as they remember his life and legacy, that no dream is ever really out of reach. During the 1930s, a rocket [music] a month in all shapes and sizes rolls off the Roswell assembly line. When manufacturers tell Dr. Goddard that the parts he needs do not exist [music] or cannot be made, he designs and makes them himself. >> [music] [music] >> Realizing the military implications of his peaceful research, he offers his services to the government in 1940. But, he writes in his diary, "There is no particular interest in rockets or rocket propulsion." >> [music] >> Finally, the Navy brings Dr. Goddard to Annapolis to work on developing rocket motors for jet-assisted airplane [music] takeoffs. For Robert Hutchings Goddard, who has been reaching for the stars, this is like harnessing Pegasus to a plow. But, he works without bitterness or complaint, successfully carrying forward experiments and research until his death on August 10th, 1945. >> [music] [bell] [music] >> Across the Atlantic, Nazi scientists find other, more awesome uses for liquid propellant rockets. Their V2s are laid out from nose to tail, just like Dr. Goddard's New Mexico rockets. >> [music] >> And they learn as he did, by trial and error. After VE Day, many German scientists pay tribute to Dr. Goddard and his pioneering work in the field of rocket propulsion. Among them, Dr. Wernher von Braun. It is a great honor for me to take part in this motion picture tribute to my boyhood hero, Dr. Robert Goddard, and to discuss his contributions to science. However belated, the recognition accorded to Dr. Goddard is eminently deserved. Like other scientists working in novel and little understood fields, venturing into unknowns fraught with hazards, he did not live to see the fruits of his successful work. But rocketry in this country and abroad owes a great deal to his vision. And so, remember him well. For this was a giant in the pioneer age of rocketry. His contributions are every day helping Johnny-come-latelies achieve his shining ambition, the exploration of the planets, stars, and galaxies that await the adventurous who follow in his giant steps. For Robert Hutchings Goddard, each new rocket that roars into life and rises into space >> [music] >> is its own tribute to his genius and vision. Reawakening [music] the words he spoke long ago in his high school commencement address, "It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday [music] is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow." >> [music] [music] >> The Screen News Digest has been brought to you as a service to schools by Carolina Power & Light Company.