EXPLORATIONS - Robert Goddard

VOICE ONE:

This is Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Shirley Griffith with the VOA Special English program, EXPLORATIONS. Today, we report on
some of the early research in the development of rockets. We tell the story of American physicist¹ and rocket
scientist Robert Hutchings Goddard.

(THEME)

VOICE ONE:

Robert Goddard once said that "the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of
tomorrow." It was his scientific work that gave hope to many of our dreams about space ...
and then turned them into reality.

Robert Goddard's many studies and tests in the early Nineteen-Hundreds led to the first

rocket. Then he developed rockets with more than one engine. Each engine pushed the rocket
higher and higher out of Earth's atmosphere. His ideas are still used today. So, in a way, every rocket that flies
today is a Goddard rocket.

VOICE TWO:

Robert Goddard was far ahead of his time. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first
controlled airplane flight at Kitty Hawk², North Carolina, in Nineteen-Oh -Three. Other
scientists and inventors after that experimented with planes. But Robert Goddard wanted
to make a machine that flew in a different way from a plane. He called his first two
designs, "rocket apparatus³."

Goddard developed and flew many rockets that got their power from solid fuels -chemicals
made hard. Then, in Nineteen-Twenty-Five, he made and tested the first rocket
engine using a soft chemical fuel. In Nineteen-Twenty-Six, he successfully fired the world's first liquid-fuel
rocket.

Many historians⁴ consider that rocket flight as important as the first airplane flight by the Wright
brothers. Goddard's work proved that machines could travel out of Earth's atmosphere, into
space.

((MUSIC BRIDGE))

VOICE ONE:

Robert Hutchings Goddard was born in Worcester, in the state of Massachusetts, in Eighteen-
Eighty-Two. His father knew a lot about machines. When Robert was a child, his family moved

With the first

liquid fuel to Boston, Massachusetts. There his father became a part owner of a business that made knives

rocket, holding for different machines.
launch stand.

(Photo NASA/
Goddard Robert was the only child. His mother suffered from the lung disease tuberculosis⁵. She was sick
Space Flight and weak, because at that time, there were no medicines to treat tuberculosis successfully.

Center)

Robert, too, was often sick. He could not keep up with his school work. His family moved back to Worcester
when he was seventeen. He was almost too old to remain in high school. Yet he was behind other children his


age. He was not a good student. He hated mathematics. This subject, of course, was what would help make him
famous later.

VOICE TWO:
One beautiful autumn day, Robert was sitting in a tree in the back of his house. He was reading a book by British
author H. G. Wells. The book was called War of the Worlds. Something strange happened to him. He later
thought that perhaps Wells' book had something to do with it.

"As I looked toward the fields in the east," he said, "I imagined how wonderful it would be to make something
that could rise to the planet Mars⁶. I imagined how this thing, in a small size, would look if sent up from the
ground at my feet. I was a different boy when I came down from that tree. For, at last, my life seemed to have
some purpose."

VOICE ONE:
Robert Goddard never talked much about what happened to him up in the tree on that day, October Nineteenth.

But he celebrated⁷ October Nineteenth as a holiday for the rest of his life. On that day, he had formed the idea of
making something that would go higher then anything had ever gone before.
He felt this was the whole purpose of his life. He was sure he could do it.
"I know," he said, "the first thing I must do is to get an education, especially in mathematics. Yes, I must become

an expert in mathematics, even if I hate it.
"
VOICE TWO:
Two years passed before Robert was healthy enough to go back to school. He entered South High School in

Worcester. He worked and worked until he no longer hated mathematics.

Robert's father spent all his money to care for his sick wife. He did not have enough to pay for Robert's education
after high school. Robert got financial help from others so he could go to a technical school in Worcester.
There he had very good teachers. They helped him become an expert in mathematics and physics.
VOICE ONE:
Robert completed his studies at the Worcester Polytechnic⁸ Institute and became a teacher of physics there. He

also continued his studies at Clark University.
He began to develop the idea of multiple-stage rockets. These were rockets with more than one engine. Each

engine would push the rocket higher and higher. The power for the rockets would come from burning two gases,
hydrogen and oxygen.
After one year at Clark University, Robert went to Princeton College in New Jersey⁹ to do more studies on

rockets.
VOICE TWO:
"Often," he said, "I worked all through the night. At last I learned how to send a rocket higher than anything had

ever gone before. But the work was too much for me. I was feeling sick again. I had to stop my work and go to
a

doctor.
"X-rays showed that, like my mother, I was very sick with tuberculosis. The doctor said I had just two weeks to
live. He put me in bed for a long rest. But I meant to live. I told myself I could not die. I had work to do.
"

VOICE ONE:
At the end of two weeks, Robert Goddard was still alive. In time, he started to work again.


In October, Nineteen-Thirteen, Goddard completed plans for his first rocket. In May of the next year, he
completed plans for another rocket. These two plans are the first ever made for a rocket that would carry people
into space. In Nineteen-Fourteen, he received two patents from the United States government to protect his rights
to his inventions.

((MUSIC BRIDGE))

VOICE TWO:

Robert Goddard received money from the Smithsonian Institution to help him continue his work. In Nineteen Nineteen,
the Smithsonian published several of his reports explaining his research. The publication was called "A
Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes." It told about his search for methods of raising weather recording¹⁰
instruments higher than balloons could go. It told about how he developed the mathematical theories of rockets.

In the report, Goddard also noted¹¹ the possibility of a rocket reaching the moon. There was a big dispute in the
press about the possibility of this. Many people thought he was foolish for suggesting such an impossible thing.

VOICE ONE:

Goddard continued to need money to continue his research. The world famous pilot Charles Lindbergh helped
him get money from the Guggenheim Foundation.

Goddard quickly began to work on plans for bigger rockets. During the Nineteen-Thirties, he tested his rockets at
a research center in Roswell, New Mexico. He tested the first rocket controlled by electricity. The control
equipment was three-hundred meters from the place of launching. He also tested the first rocket controlled by a
gyroscope. Gyroscopes help keep rockets aimed in the right direction.

VOICE TWO:

Goddard did all his work in the United States, yet his work became known around the world. Scientists in
Germany used his ideas to help build the V-Two rocket that was used in World War Two.

During World War Two, Goddard helped the United States Navy develop some rocket motors and ways to
launch jet planes. He continued work he had begun at the end of World War One that led to the bazooka, a
weapon that fires small rockets.

VOICE ONE:

Robert Goddard died in Ninety-Forty-Five of cancer. He was sixty-three years old. He had been sick most of his
life, but he died a happy man. He received many honors for his work. He believed his life had been a full one. He
felt lucky that the great dream that came to him, out of nowhere, when he was only seventeen years old had
become real.

VOICE TWO:

Robert Goddard received a special honor many years after his death. In Nineteen-Fifty-Nine, the United States
established the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, near Washington, D-C. It was the
government's first major scientific laboratory used completely for space science.

The Goddard Space Flight Center honors the man whose work proved that machines could travel out of Earth's
atmosphere, into space.

(THEME)

VOICE ONE:

This is Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:


And this is Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week at this time to the Special English program,
EXPLORATIONS, on the Voice of America.

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1 physicist   

n.物理学家，研究物理学的人

参考例句：

• He is a physicist of the first rank.他是一流的物理学家。
• The successful physicist never puts on airs.这位卓有成就的物理学家从不摆架子。

2 hawk   

n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员

参考例句：

• The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it.鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
• The hawk snatched the chicken and flew away.老鹰叼了小鸡就飞走了。

3 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

4 historians   

n.历史学家，史学工作者( historian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Historians seem to have confused the chronology of these events. 历史学家好像把这些事件发生的年代顺序搞混了。
• Historians have concurred with each other in this view. 历史学家在这个观点上已取得一致意见。

5 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

6 Mars   

n.火星，战争

参考例句：

• As of now we don't know much about Mars.目前我们对火星还知之甚少。
• He contended that there must be life on Mars.他坚信火星上面一定有生物。

7 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

8 polytechnic   

adj.各种工艺的，综合技术的；n.工艺(专科)学校；理工(专科)学校

参考例句：

• She was trained as a teacher at Manchester Polytechnic.她在曼彻斯特工艺专科学校就读，准备毕业后做老师。
• When he was 17,Einstein entered the Polytechnic Zurich,Switzerland,where he studied mathematics and physics.17岁时，爱因斯坦进入了瑞士苏黎士的专科学院，学习数学和物理学。

9 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

10 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

11 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。