5 October 2000

Many were inspired by H. G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," Robert Goddard spent his life bringing parts of that book into being. In college he attracted attention with smoke and loud noises, his workspace was moved several times at the request of neighboring departments. Worked out the math behind rocketry, proving that a rocket would provide propulsion in a vacuum - a concept that got him a foolish contradiction from the New York Times (see quotes below) and left him wary of the press corps for life, but the day after the launch of the first Apollo moon mission the Times made a public apology. That apology came 24 years after Goddard's death, as did most of his public recognition as well as most of his patents. The military ignored most of his large-scale work, and his widow had to sue for payment for use of his patents. Goddard was finally recognized publicly in 1959 when the Goddard Space Flight Center was established and Congress authorized a gold medal in his honor.

We also have the conclusion of a tragic episode in US treatment of the First Peoples, with a quote from the surrender speech, the first black mayor, the first televised presidential address, the fall from grace of a famous television preacher, and the start of the Iran-Contra story.

I was in too much of a hurry preparing the item on Sputnik yesterday. The speed listed was 2,000 miles per hour - which I should have immediately recognized as not only too slow for the 98-minute orbit but also too slow to reach orbit at all - should have been 18,000 mph. It sent data on the ionosphere and high-atmosphere density for three weeks before the batteries failed, the Sputnik that sent simple temperature data back was a one-third scale replica built by Soviet and Finnish teenagers and hand launched from the Mir space station on the 40th anniversary of the original.

1867 - Monroe Baker, a successful black businessman, was named mayor of St. Martin, Louisiana, probably the first black to serve as a mayor of any town or city in the US.

1877 - Chief Joseph and 750 "non treaty" Nez Percé Indians were trapped at Bears Paw, Montana. With only 250 warriors, the tribe had fought a retreat of 1200 miles through four states lasting four months and were only 30 miles from the Canadian border and safety. There had been about 20 skirmishes along the route, the tribe was pursued by over 2,000 federal troops, other Indians, and civilian volunteers.

1947 - US President Harry S Truman called for Americans to give up one slice of bread a day, to go without meat on Tuesdays, and without eggs and chickens on Thursdays, to release those supplies for relief of postwar Europe. It was the first time a US president had made a speech on television.

1986 - A CIA-sponsored C-123 cargo plane with Southern Air Transport markings carrying arms and ammunition was shot down over Nicaragua. Eugene Hasenfus, the sole survivor, was interrogated and later revealed the ownership of the plane, starting the "Iran-Contra" affair.

1989 - Ten months after being indicted by a federal grand jury, televangelist Jim Bakker, 50, was found guilty on 24 counts of mail and wire fraud. Three weeks later, on October 24th, Bakker was fined $500,000 and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Republic Day, Portugal, Macao - Commemorates the creation of the first Portuguese Republic on this day in 1910, following the flight of Manuel II to Gibraltar the day before. Dom Manuel, age 20, was the last of the Henriques dynasty that had ruled Portugal since 1143.

1882 - Robert Hutchings Goddard, US physicist - Born at Worcester, Massachusetts, Goddard graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1908 and became a physics instructor there. While teaching he began graduate work at Clark University, received his M.A. in 1910 and a Ph.D. in 1911. Research fellow at Princeton in 1912, joined the faculty at Clark University 1914, full professor in 1919, professor at Clark for over thirty years. Did first static testing of solid fuel rocket engines at WPI in 1907, submitted papers to Scientific American the same year. At Princeton developed mathematical theory of rocket propulsion, at Clark in 1915 proved that rockets could work in the vacuum of space, started working with liquid-fueled rocket engines in 1916 with Smithsonian Institution funding. Married Esther Kisk in 1924, a secretary at Clark who had worked late on his typing. Launched the firstliquid-fueled rocket on 16 March 1926 at Auburn, Massachusetts, flight lasted 2.5 seconds and got 41 feet off the ground. Four years later his rockets had hit 500 miles per hour on the way to an altitude of 2,000 feet over an impromptu test range in the prairie near Roswell, New Mexico. In his twelve years at Roswell his team worked on launch control, stabilization, tracking, and recovery, a total of 56 test flights were made by rockets from his shop at Roswell. He worked under contract to the US Navy in World War II on rocket-assisted launch for heavy aircraft on carriers, his earlier work in solid-fuel rockets was used in the bazooka - he had demonstrated the first one two days before the first world war ended. Goddard was eventually granted 214 patents in rocketry, over three quarters of which were awarded after he died at Annapolis, Maryland on 10 August 1945.

I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.
     - Dwight David Eisenhower

All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching?
     - Nicholas Johnson

Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.
     - Chief Joseph, leader of the Nez Percé

Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
     - New York Times, 1920

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