Rocket Man; Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age

New York: Hyperion, 2003. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Trade paperback. Very good/No DJ present. xxvi, 324, [2] pages. Chronology of Robert H. Goddard. Abbreviations Used in Text and Notes. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. More famous in his day than Einstein or Edison, the solitary genius Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945) was the American father of rocketry and space flight, launching the world's first liquid-fuel rockets and the first powered vehicles to break the sound barrier. Supported by Charles Lindbergh and Harry Guggenheim, through often explosive experiments at Roswell, New Mexico, he invented the methods that carried men to the moon. Today, no rocket or jet plane can fly without using his inventions. Yet he is the "forgotten man" of the space age. His own government ignored his rocketry until the Germans demonstrated its principles in the V-2 missiles of World War II. Clary, former chief historian of the US Forest Service, has been a consultant to government agencies and has taught history at the university level. Historian David A. Clary specializes in the history of the United States and has written on such diverse topics as the U.S. Corps of Engineers and flying saucers in America. In his book Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age, Clary provides a biography of the man famous in space technology circles for developing the liquid-fueled rocket. Clary "attempts to clean Goddard's biography of the varnish applied in earlier biographies," noted a Publishers Weekly contributor. Gilbert Taylor, writing in Booklist, commented that "this well-researched portrait cements Goddard's status as a hero in the history of space technology." The American government usurped his 214 patents, while suppressing his contributions in the name of national security, until it was forced to pay one million dollars for patent infringement. Goddard became famous again, monuments and medals raining upon his memory. But his renewed fame soon faded, and Goddard's pivotal role in launching the Space Age has been largely forgotten. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: Americans of the WWII generation will probably recognize the name of Massachusetts-born scientist Robert Goddard (1882-1945), who frequently made the pages of American newspapers and magazines in the 1930s with his rocket experiments outside Roswell, New Mexico. Baby boomers and their children, however, may never have heard of this pioneer in the construction of liquid-fuel rockets. Clary, attempts to clean Goddard's biography of the varnish applied in earlier biographies supervised by the scientist's widow and his close friend Charles Lindbergh. Goddard emerges here as a paradoxical man who relentlessly promoted his work, winning hundreds of thousands of dollars in Guggenheim grants, while shunning offers to collaborate with other scientists. Clary presents a clear and relatively straightforward narrative of his subject's life. Readers who come to this well-written biography with some knowledge of Goddard's significance will find much of interest to fill out their knowledge of this complex and fascinating scientist for whom NASA's Goddard Space Center is named.