A Brief History of Rocketry – Early Rockets to Goddard

In roughly 850 AD, gunpowder – one of the “four great inventions” – was invented by the Chinese. The earliest known chemical explosive, this mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate would become widespread in a variety of military and civilian uses. By 900 it had been adapted for military use and was first used in war in 904, during the Song Dynasty, as a propulsion system for arrows. The earliest Chinese rocket consisted of a heavy paper tube filled with gun powder. These were stabilized with a long wooden stick and fired toward the enemy. In 1232, during the battle of Kai-Fung-Fu, the Chinese repelled Mongol invaders by a barrage of “arrows of flying fire.” A very simple solid-fueled rocket, these tubes contained gunpowder and were sealed at one end. The other end was open, with the tube being attached to a long stick. When the powder was ignited, its rapid burning produced fire, smoke, and gas that escaped out the open end and produced thrust. The stick acted as a simple guidance system that kept the rocket headed in one general direction as it flew through the air. These early rockets could carry either flammable materials – as in incendiary device – or poison rocket heads. Arrays of box launchers could send up to 1000 rockets a distance of 1000 feet. Though probably not very accurate, this new terrifying weapon must have impressed the Mongols, as they soon adapted the technology for their own use, and probably exported that technology to the western borders of their empire – into Europe and over the Silk Road.

These paths across Asia allowed the new technology of rocketry to enter Europe, the Middle East, and India. During the 7th Crusade, 1248 – 1254, French troops were moving along an eastern branch of the Nile River toward the port town of Damietta. Arab forces on the opposite side of the river fired “…a projectile…which, when it had fallen on the bank (of the river) came straight towards them, burning wildly: it is doubtlessly the egg that moves and burns…” and consisted of three rockets “…combined such that two of these rockets served as a guiding stick for the third” (Jean, Sire de Jointville, 1268). These rockets had been written about by al-Hasan al-Rammah Nedjm al-din al-Ahdab in his Treatise of Horsemanship and War Stratagems, and Ibn Khaldun, in his Book of Wonders.

Soon, Europeans were familiar with these new weapons and began describing and discussing their uses: the Italian Muratori, who first used the word “rochetta” in 1379; Konrad Kyser von Eichstadt described them in his War Fortifications in 1405; Joanes de Fontana in his 1420 sketchbook Book of War Instruments; and Jean Froissart who, in his Chronicles of the Hundred Years War, discusses their possible use.

Soon, Europeans were familiar with these new weapons and by 1337 the English rulers of the House of Plantagenet and the French House of Valois went to war over the right to rule the Kingdom of France – an issue which had caused tensions for generations. This war would last until 1453. In 1429, the French army would have its most important victory in Orleans – a city of immense strategic and symbolic power. During the siege, French troops launched numerous rockets at the English attackers. St. Joan of Arc would have seen them in action. Following their success at Orleans, the French used rockets three more times – in their sieges of Pont-Andemer in 1449, Bordeaux in 1452, and Gard in 1453.

Further research throughout Europe occurred after the war concluded, with the Germans conducting experiments by 1668. In 1680, Peter the Great of Russia developed the first facility to make rockets. These Russian rockets were mainly illumination rockets – flares – to use in lighting up battlefields at night.

The last three decades of the 1700’s saw the Anglo-Mysore Wars – a series of conflicts between the Indian Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company. A Mysorean army under Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan had, within its ranks, a 1200 man rocket corps which was regularly pressed into the attack upon British troops. After the fall of Srirangapatna after the Battle of Seringapatam in 1799, the conflict finally came to an end. In the fortress of the city, British troops recovered 600 rocket launchers, 900 empty rocket tubes, and 700 prepared rockets which consisted of two types: those with pierced cylinders which could be used as incendiaries, and rockets with iron points or blades that would spin during flight. This recovered material led to the beginning of research at the Royal Laboratories of Woolwich Arsenal, in Kent, England.

In 1801 a rocket research center was developed at Woolwich Arsenal. Several rocket tubes had been collected in India and sent to be studied. Informed that the rockets had killed more men in Seringapatam than other weapons, Sir William Congreve set up a research and development program at the Woolwich Arsenal’s laboratory to study the Mysore material and develop his own rockets, first with a cardboard tube in 1804 and, by 1806, a sheet iron tube. Numerous types of rockets were developed at the lab an put into production – among them 18, 24, 32, 42, 100, and 300 pound weapons. The most widely used was the 32 pound rocket, three and a half feet long, with a diameter of 4 inches and a range of 3000 yards. It was these 32 pound rockets used in the 24 hour barrage of Ft. McHenry, in Baltimore harbor, in 1814. The British also used Congreve’s rockets in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

The early 19th century saw even more interest in rockets, with military rockets being tested in St. Petersburg, Russian in 1817 and a special army brigade being created for their use, and by 1826 a factory was producing military rockets which were used in the Russo-Turkish War. In 1818, an rocket brigade was created in England, “…with the Austrian Army followed suit the same year, creating their own rocket brigade using rockets manufactured at a factory located in Wienerisch-Neustadt.” With all of this experimentation and rocket production, it made sense that improvements in rocket flight and performance would result. Scientists understood that giving a projectile spin would make it more accurate. Englishman William Hale created the first spin-stabilized rockets in 1844, with tail fins and additional exhaust nozzles along the body to control spin during flight. Though their range was considerably shorter than Congreve’s rockets, at 2000 yards, they were lighter – either 6 or 16 pounds – and far more accurate.

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Illustration plates from Sir William Congreve’s “Details of The Rocket System,” 1814.

Although Hale rockets originated in Great Britain, they played an important role in the history of rocketry in the United States. Hale rockets were the first rockets used by United States armed forces in battle. On November 19, 1846 Major General Winfield Scott was selected to lead an expeditionary force to Veracruz, Mexico and on to Mexico City. His force included a brigade of rocketeers, the first in the history of the United States armed forces. Volunteers for this rocket brigade were solicited via posters beginning on December 4, 1846. Posters requested, “Active, brave young men to serve with rocket and mountain howitzer batteries, now preparing by the Ordnance Department for immediate departure.” Training of this brigade was conducted at Fort Monroe, Virginia. The battery, including the rocketeers, was placed under the command of First Lt. George H. Talcott. The rocket brigade itself was placed under the command of Brevet Second Lt. Jesse Lee Reno. The rocket brigade consisted of 150 men and their equipment, which included a number of 2.25-inch, 6-pound versions of the Hale rocket. The rocket brigade departed Fort Monroe on February 1, 1847 on the bark Saint Cloud. The rocket brigade joined Scott’s expeditionary forces on the island of Lobos, 200 miles north of Veracruz, in late February.

The force sailed on to Anton Lizardo, then to Sacrificios, located just three miles southeast of Veracruz. The main landing at Veracruz took place on March 9, 1847 when 67 surf boats, each carrying 75 to 80 men including the rocket brigade, sailed ashore. Troops quickly advanced to Veracruz, which was placed under siege. The first Hale rockets were launched on March 24, 1847 against Veracruz fortifications. The city surrendered on March 29, 1847. On April 8, 1847 the rocket brigade moved inland, having been transferred to the command of General David Twiggs. The force quickly advanced along a route discovered by Captain Robert E. Lee. A rocket battery was established at La Atalaya after its occupation. About 30 rockets were fired against El Telegrafo Hill on April 18, 1847.

In August, 1847 rockets were being fired against Mexican forces in and around Mexico City, most notably at Churubusco. On September 12 and 13, 1847 a rocket barrage was effectively used to soften Mexican positions during the storming of Chapultepec. The rocket brigade was disbanded in 1848 as the Mexican War drew to a close. United States forces made good use of Hale rockets, and may have also defended themselves against Mexican rockets. A number of Congreve rockets were included in the captured arsenals of Santa Anna, although there are no specific accounts of the rockets being fired in battle.

From the conclusion of the war with Mexico to 1861 and the beginning of the US Civil War, rockets had declined in importance. Improvements in conventional artillery such as breech loading and rifling of barrels has increased their accuracy and lethality dramatically. Even so, both Union and Confederate armies attempted to use both Congreve and Hale rockets. Unfortunately, this proved unsuccessful, as the gunpowder charges no longer worked properly after long-term storage. Because of this, both sides developed their own rockets – much cruder and less effective than the British rockets. Nevertheless, on July 3, 1862, Confederate troops under Jeb Stuart used them against Union troops during the Battle of Harrison’s Landing, with Colonel James Kirk later writing that one of his 10th Pennsylvania Reserves soldiers was injured by a rocket projectile fired from a gun carriages.

During Confederate campaigns in Texas, rockets and carriages manufactured in Galveston, later Houston, were used in 1863 and 1864. The first Union rocket unit was organized in 1861, when the New York Rocket Battalion’s 160 men were mustered in at Albany on December 6 and 7. Initially recruited as three companies, it consolidated as two under the command of Major Thomas Lyon and left for Washington D.C. in late December. By May 1862, part of the Battalion had moved to North Carolina. The rockets used were up to 20 inches long, with a 3 inch diameter, and were launched from eight-foot-long tubes – four of which were mounted on each carriage. Other methods of deployment consisted of an open framework guiding rod system, or individual three-inch tubes. Though mainly an incendiary device, the “warhead” could be modified to carry and timed-fuse explosive charge packed with musket balls. Though they had an incredible range – for the time – of three miles, they were too erratic for use and never fired in combat.

By November 1862, the unit was disbanded and re-designated a light artillery unit. Union forces used rockets against a Confederate army in one instance, however. In South Carolina, General Alexander Schimmelfennig used them to drive enemy picket boats away.

The American Civil War marked a turning point in modern warfare, as many historians consider it the beginning of “modern” warfare and the first truly industrialized conflict. Such advances as the use of the telegraph to convey information, the movement of troops and material by train, balloons for high-altitude observation, and iron-clad warships and submarines changed warfare for good. Small arms technology like the repeating rifle and the “minie ball” round changed how quickly men could shoot, and the ability to mass-produce rifled-bore tubes for artillery meant larger numbers of more accurate weapons could be produced.

In the early 1900s there was a rise of experimentation with rocket motors using liquid rather than solid fuel. Three rocket scientists were at the forefront of this research – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the Soviet Union, Hermann Oberth in Germany, and Robert Goddard in New Mexico. Goddard had the greatest impact and, prior to the German V-2 program, made the most significant discoveries. His work was financially supported by the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at California Institute of Technology (CALTECH). As the “father” of the first working rocket, his work was instrumental in everything that followed. Oberth’s mathematical calculations and support played an important role in the early work of the later German rocket team as well. But first…who was Pedro Paulet?

Pedro Paulet

Pedro A. Paulet was a Peruvian chemical engineer and diplomat. Though he failed to report on his work until October 1927 in Lima’s El Comercio newspaper, he conducted experiments with liquid-fueled rockets as early as 1895. His rocket motor was small, made of vanadium steel, and was capable of producing up to 200 pounds of thrust. Paulet was forced to discontinue his work because of economic trouble and “his neighbor’s complaints.” His rocket motor was significant as it was fueled by a mixture of nitrogen peroxide and gasoline, with a spark gap in the combustion chamber providing ignition. The motor itself weighed just over 5 pounds, producing its thrust at 300 explosions a minute.

By 1901, Paulet had joined the Peruvian diplomatic corps, being posted in Paris and later Antwerp, while continuing various scientific pursuits. He died in 1945, at the age of 70. Should Paulet rightly be called the “Father of Modern Rocketry?” Wernher von Braun certainly thought as much.

Paulet would have been largely forgotten had it not been for Russian scientist Alexander Scherschevsky, who learned of the article while living in Germany and summarized it in his book “The Rocket for Travel and Flight” published in 1929. The publication of works by both Robert Goddard and Hermann Oberth sparked the imagination and interest of scientists and engineers throughout Europe. In response to this, Paulet wrote his letter to the paper to claim credit – legal and otherwise – for this new innovation in science, it was a plea for recognition of the work he had done decades earlier while a student at the Institute of Applied Chemistry in Paris. Fearing he would not be believed, he called upon his former friends and colleagues in Paris to verify his experimental work, but could find no witnesses for his legal claims to being the inventor of a liquid-fueled rocket motor.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Born in Russia in 1857, Tsiolkovsky’s original interest in rocketry came from his philosophical work on human interactions in colonizing space. A physicist and mathematician, his research was broad and included gas dynamics and mathematical models for space travel, and in May 1903, he published “Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices,” his most famous work. In it, he details using liquid-fueled, multi-stage rockets, and was the first to independently calculate the “Ideal Rocket Calculation,” known as the “Tsiolkovsky Equation.” This formula was also independently reached by Robert Goddard in 1912, and Hermann Oberth by 1920. The Tsiolkovsky equation states that the horizontal speed required for an orbit of the Earth is 8000 meters/second, or about 5 miles per second. A multi-stage rocket fueled by liquid oxygen and hydrogen could accomplish this, with each stage being released as its fuel load burned out, lightening the rocket in the process.

Tsiolkovsky continued his research and design interests throughout his life, and many of his theoretical designs and calculations became an important part of modern rocket design: the use of fuel as a cooling mechanism for combustion chambers, graphite or carbon vanes and exhaust vectoring for flight control, development of numerous fuel/oxidizer combinations for the greatest efficiency in combustion, a chemically-driven pump system to provide fuels for the combustion chamber, and calculating the required trajectory for a craft to enter Earth’s atmosphere and return from space.

Tsiolkovsky died in 1935, never seeing one of his rockets built and launched, but his equations and many of his ideas became critical in the future success of other rocket engineers.

Hermann Oberth

Born in 1894 in Hermannstadt, Transylvania (now Sibiu, Romania) Hermann Oberth was inspired at the age of eleven by the works of novelist Jules Verne, and at age 14 built his first model rocket. Drafted into the Imperial German Army at the outbreak of World War I, by 1915 he was posted to a medical unit in Romania and in his spare time designed rockets. In 1917, he send a proposal to the German War Department regarding the use of large, liquid-fueled long range rockets for use in bombardment – a proposal which was rejected. In 1922, he proposed the same, again to the German government, but with the introduction of their possible use as a vehicle for space flight so as to not cause concerns over violations of the 1919 Versailles Treaty.

The year 1922 was a crucial year for the young scientist, as his proposed dissertation idea was dismissed as “utopian;” he was urged to come up with a different topic. Rejecting this recommendation, he later said “I refrained from writing another one, thinking to myself: Never mind, I will prove that I am able to become a greater scientist than some of you.” The proposal was published as the 92-page The Rocket into Planetary Space, a ground-breaking work, but one which caused Oberth a bit of consternation. Only a few years previously Robert Goddard had published his first – seminal – work, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. To avoid the implication that his work was “inspired” by Goddard’s, Oberth included a three page addendum, urging readers to study both to see that Oberth had come to his conclusions separately.

By 1929, Oberth had expanded his earlier work into the 400-page publication titled “The Road to Space Travel” and worked tirelessly to promote his ideas of using rockets to go into space. That same year, he became president of the VfR – Verein für Raumschiffahrt, or Spaceflight Society. Due to his publications and reputation he became an important mentor to many of the young scientists and engineers of the VfR, and was approached by the UFA Film Company. Director Fritz Lang was planning his movie “Frau im Mond” (The Girl in the Moon) and an idea for a publicity stunt was born. Oberth, with his assistants Rudolf Nebel and Alexander Scherschevsky, designed a rocket called “Kegelduse.” The rocket was built in a space acquired for the project at the Reich Institution of Chemical Technology by Klaus Riedel and a young 18 year old assistant – Wernher von Braun. Static tested in July 1930, money for the project soon dried up and Oberth was forced to leave the VfR and return to teach in Romania.

The next few years saw Oberth move many times – from Romania to Germany, Austria and the United States before finally returning to teach in Dresden, Germany in 1938. By 1941, he joined the German rocket team at the Aggregate rocket research, development and test center at Peenemunde. When the war ended in 1945, Oberth traveled to Nuremberg, in the US Zone of occupation, before moving to Switzerland and later Italy. By the late 1950’s he had moved to Redstone Arsenal, Alabama and joined the main group of German rocket scientists who were brought to the US under “Operation Paperclip” and were now doing development work for the US Army. In 1960, Oberth took a job as a technical consultant with the Convair Corporation on the Saturn V rocket program before retiring and moving back to Germany in 1962. In 1969, he returned to view the launch of Apollo 11, then returned again in 1985 to observe the ill-fated launch of Space Shuttle Challenger during the STS-41 mission. Oberth returned to Nuremberg, Germany one last time, where he died in December 1989.

Robert Goddard, the “Father of American Rocketry,” was an engineer and physicist who created and launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket on March 16, 1926. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1882, Goddard’s interest in rocketry and space was sparked at a young age, thanks to the novels of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Even as a youth, he realized it was how he would spend his life.

As a young teacher at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1908, Goddard conducted experiments with small solid-fuel rocket motors – indoors. He was soon asked to move his experiments outside. The following year, he was pursuing graduate studies at Clark University in Worcester while continuing to refine his ideas – one of which was the efficiency of using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as the ideal propellants. Awarded his doctorate in 1911, he then taught at Princeton University from 1912 -1913 while further refining his ideas to the point that, by 1914, he held patents in combustion chamber design, exhaust nozzles, propellant systems, and multi-stage rockets. The approach of the First World War found Goddard back in Worcester, flight testing solid-fuel rockets that reached up to 500 feet in altitude. By now, he needed additional funding to further his research – into liquid-fueled rockets.

In 1916, he wrote to the Smithsonian Institution, describing his work in some detail, and requested a grant which would allow him to continue. Asked for provide more information, he detailed the use of his invention as a platform for high-altitude scientific data gathering. In January, 1917, he was awarded a grant of $5000, allowing him to begin a more serious pursuit of his work. The war, however, placed his plans on hold.

Goddard approached both the Army and Navy with proposals to use rockets for various purposes but only the Army responded. Sponsored by the US Army Signal Corps, and working from the security of the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, his proposal consisted of a light, tube-launched rocket that could be used as an infantry weapon. With Dr. Clarence Hickham, he demonstrated the use of the rocket at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland in early November 1918. Though the Army was impressed with the potential weapon, the Compiegne Armistice, ending the war, was signed 5 days later and the project was discontinued. Later, Dr. Hickham, working with Colonel Leslie Skinner and Lieutenant Edward Uhl, took Goddard’s invention and added a shaped charge to the rocket, creating the Bazooka.

At the urging of Dr. Arthur Webster, of the Smithsonian, Goddard expanded the 1916 proposal he used to seek funding, and included new research data and notes. A groundbreaking work, it’s regarded as one of the pioneering studies in modern rocketry, and described Goddard’s mathematical theories in depth – such as the relationships between propellants, thrust, mass, velocity, and energy. Though the research dealt in great detail with solid fuels, such as nitrocellulose smokeless powder, a breakthrough was described in the use of Laval nozzles with rocket engines. The use of these nozzles – which convert the energy from gas combustion into forward thrust – increased the efficiency of Goddard’s rocket motors from 2 percent to almost 70 percent.

He also used an approximate method to solve his differential equations, concluding that a rocket with an effective exhaust velocity of 7000 feet per second and an initial weight of 602 pounds would be able to send a one-pound payload to an infinite height – space. This small part of the monograph, included close to the end, gained Goddard considerable attention when he stated that proving that an object had indeed attained infinite height would be rather difficult to prove. He wrote, “The only reliable procedure would be to send the smallest mass of flash powder possible to the dark surface of the moon when in conjunction [i.e. the new moon], in such a way that it would be ignited upon impact. The light would then be visible in a powerful telescope.” Goddard even calculated the amount of powder required.

A man who avoided publicity, he was unprepared for what happened when the media discovered his idea to send a rocket to the moon. Though this part of the book was only 8 lines of text, almost at the end of 69 pages, the press seized on it to ridicule Goddard and his idea. In a front page story about Goddard, the New York Times failed to show any understanding of Newton’s third law of physics – which a read of the monograph would have clarified – and wrote,

After the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey, its flight would
be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then
might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of
dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are
licensed to do that. … Of course, [Goddard] only seems to lack the knowledge
ladled out daily in high schools.

A week later, Goddard released a statement to the Associated Press, “Too much attention has been concentrated on the proposed flash powder experiment, and too little on the exploration of the atmosphere. … Whatever interesting possibilities there may be of the method that has been proposed, other than the purpose for which it was intended, no one of them could be undertaken without first exploring the atmosphere.” He further responded in a Popular Science article in 1924, in which he explained the physics and gave the details of the experiments he had conducted using a vacuum – proving that rocket flight in space was certainly possible.

Further Smithsonian funding in 1920, as well as a position with the US Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance – Indian Head Powder Factory in Maryland, helped Goddard fund further research and by 1926 he was ready for the most important of his pioneering experiments. Though he had begun experimenting with liquid-fueled rockets in 1921, his continued difficulties in developing a high-pressure pump led him to try a pressurized fuel feed system – a system still used today. His first static test occurred in December 1925 and its success demonstrated to Goddard the idea could work. Additional testing occurred in the beginning of 1926 and by March he was ready for the first flight of a liquid-fueled rocket.

In the cabbage patch of Aunt Effie’s farm, in Auburn, Massachusetts, Goddard gathered with his crew chief Henry Sachs, Esther Goddard, and Percy Roope, assistant professor of physics at Clark University. The rocket, dubbed “Nell,” rose from the launch frame at 2:30 in the afternoon and reached an altitude of 41 feet, landing 184 feet away. The launch proved that liquid fuels and oxidizers could be used as rocket propellants. The experiment also showed that fins were not for sufficient for stabilization, and Goddard later added movable vanes in the rocket exhaust, controlled by an on-board gyroscope – a system used by the Germans in their V-2 rocket program in later years.

Another flight in 1929 had unseen consequences for Goddard – a visit from Charles Lindbergh. Reading about the test in the New York Times, by this time Lindbergh had understood that the future of aircraft and flight might lay in the use of rockets and – to that end – decided to pay a visit to Goddard’s office at Clark; after checking to ensure Goddard was “legitimate.” Though ground-breaking, Goddard’s research and experimentation was largely ignored in the United States. Lindbergh’s support extended to his pursuit of business and commerce leaders, asking their support for Goddard. Due to the financial conditions in the United States after the stock market crash of 1929, however, they were in no position to fund something like Goddard’s rocket experiments. By the spring of 1930, Lindbergh convinced financier Daniel Guggenheim to provide funding for a total of $100,000 over the next four years.

That summer, Goddard moved to New Mexico and continued his research at a specially build and equipped laboratory at Mescalero Ranch, 12 miles northwest of Roswell. Here, he conducted tests of a variety of “series” rockets. For example, the “A Series” rockets tested guidance and control, and gyroscope systems, while his “P Series” rockets tested new designs for propellant pumps. These tests were instrumental in the further development of rocket frames, guidance and control systems, fuels and fuel pumps, and propellants – and led to further innovations in rocket technology throughout the twentieth century. Goddard also worked with the US Navy prior to the Second World War on JATO (Jet-assist Take Off) engine technology, but his work never go the attention it truly deserved in the United States. In Europe, however, his ideas were seriously studied and refined. Wernher von Braun stated, “His rockets … may have been rather crude by present-day standards, but they blazed the trail and incorporated many features used in our most modern rockets and space vehicles.” Goddard died in August, 1945, in Baltimore, and only after his death was his true importance in the development of rocketry and space travel understood.

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