VOLUME 13, NO. 3     June 2001

Goddard Memorial Takes Flight

WPI and Clark University information kiosks will grace the entrance to the Goddard Memorial.

Two decades of persistence finally paid off in December for a group of Worcester citizens when they joined with U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern and local officials to kick off a $100,000 fund-raising campaign for a memorial to Robert H. Goddard ’08, the father of modern rocketry. Private donations and in-kind contributions are being solicited for the memorial at Apricot Street and Goddard Memorial Drive--the first public monument dedicated to him in his hometown. WPI and Clark University have each pledged $7,000 to construct kiosks at the memorial, which is adjacent to Cider Mill Park near Worcester Airport. Checks may be sent to the Goddard Memorial Association, 1 Tallawanda Drive, Worcester, MA 01603.

GMA president Kathryn "Kitty" McNamee, a neighbor and close friend of Goddard’s widow, Esther Kisk Goddard, first proposed the memorial more than 20 years ago. Barbara Berka, who is married to Ladislav Berka, research professor of chemistry and biochemistry at WPI, is secretary and director of community outreach for the association, which was established in 1992. GMA member Jennifer Timm ’01 constructed the organization’s Web site, www.goddardmemorial.org.

The man whose work was the foundation of modern space flight, was born Oct. 5, 1882. He attended Gates Lane School and South High School in Worcester before enrolling as a general science major at WPI. As an undergraduate, he wrote in the WPI Journal about the use of the gyroscope in balancing and steering airplanes, and submitted an article titled "Possibility of Investigating Interplanetary Space" to Popular Astronomy, whose editor is said to have rejected it because the impossibility of ever flying through space was "so certain."

After graduation, he remained at his alma mater for two more years as a physics instructor, then enrolled at Clark University, where he earned a master’s degree in 1910 and a doctorate a year later. During those years he continued to use WPI facilities for his research. In 1914 he earned patents for multistage and liquid-fuel rockets; he ultimately held 214 patents. WPI’s Goddard Hall is named for him, as is the Alumni Association’s award for outstanding professional achievement, which was established in 1961.

On March 16, 1926, Goddard’s liquid-fuel rocket climbed 41 feet before crashing into his Aunt Effie’s cabbage patch in nearby Auburn. Though the entire flight lasted only 2.5 seconds, it was the longest any liquid-fueled rocket had ever flown. In 1930 he took his experiments to the open spaces of Roswell, N.M., where his rockets traveled as high as 9,000 feet.

Robert Goddard died in Baltimore in 1945; he is buried in Worcester’s Hope Cemetery.