Sarah Williford Robert H. Goddard
Miss Sullivan
Science
3/14/08
Ever since he was seven, this great scientist had the dream of spaceflight. Robert H. Goddard was a special young boy with talent in both creative science and practical engineering. This unusual combination allowed him to become known for devising one of the most useful rockets known to mankind. Through the years, Goddard pursued his dreams and discovered many facts and formulas that are still used by scientists today. His most credible invention was the liquid fueled rocket, which set a track for the spacecraft today.
Robert H. Goddard was born into a small family on October 5, 1882, at Maple Hill, Worcester, Maryland. As for his schooling, Goddard was far from normal. He attended regular school for most of his school years, but he had to repeat a grade twice in his career for he had many stomach problems. Later, he attended South High School and graduated there in 1904. During the graduation ceremony, Goddard delivered his class speech as Valedictorian. Robert Goddard then registered at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the year 1904 where he quickly became a laboratory assistant and tutor. Also, he received his Bachelor’s degree in physics there. Following his success at Worcester, Goddard enrolled at Clark University. The first time he ever wrote about his idea of the liquid-fueled rocket was in February of 1909 while he was a student at Clark University. He later received his Master’s degree and Ph.D. from that school. These degrees helped Goddard significantly in his work.
From the age seven on, Goddard had an interest in rockets, but his dream of spaceflight did not begin until one lazy afternoon in 1899. He was instructed to prune the dead branches of an old cherry tree, but instead of working after he climbed up, he began to ponder. He wrote in his diary, “how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to...