10 ANNUAL, REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1930 



The highest level of the air which can now be studied is about 

 20 miles up, reached by sounding balloons, but these balloons often 

 drift as much as 150 miles from their starting point, and their 

 recovery is slow and uncertain. A rocket, on the other hand, would 

 go straight up to any desired height and provided with a parachute 

 would return in a short time at or very near its starting point. With 

 suitable automatic apparatus, such a rocket could bring back samples 

 of the upper air for chemical analysis, measure the temperature and 

 pressure of the higher atmosphere, expose spectographs above the 

 ozone layer where the ultra-violet spectrum of the sun could be 

 observed, and record the condition of the atmosphere from 5,000 feet 

 upward in the interests of aviation. In short, a whole new field of 

 investigation would be opened up — ^the unknown upper layers of the 

 earth's atmosphere. 



This investigation was pioneering in character; little was avail- 

 able as a guide. After much experimenting with a rocket equipped 

 with a device for feeding small charges of high explosive, Doctor 

 Goddard turned finally to the scheme of a steady combustion of 

 hydrocarbon in liquid, oxygen. After further modifying the design 

 of the rocket itself to adapt it to the use of this new means of 

 propulsion. Doctor Goddard was ready at the close of the fiscal 

 year for an actual field trial of the device. 



It may be said that on July 17, 1929, a trial of the liquid-pro- 

 pelled rocket was made at Worcester, Mass., the device functioning 

 satisfactorily as regards the flow of liquid, the ascent of the rocket, 

 and its rapid motion in air. The trial rocket was guided only 

 by vanes on its rear end, and these proved inefiicient, the rocket 

 describing a high arch and returning to the ground instead of 

 making a vertical flight. Doctor Goddard has already designed 

 automatic stabilizers, however, and these together with the neces- 

 sary automatic recording devices are seemingly all that is needed 

 to insure a successful, practical flight of the rocket to the higher 

 layers of the atmosphere and its return with the first records of an 

 unknown region. 



The apparently assured success of Doctor Goddard's experiments 

 has drawn support from a source better equipped financially to 

 provide it than the Smithsonian. The late Simon Guggenheim at 

 Colonel Lindbergh's suggestion made a large grant of funds and 

 set up an advisory committee of which the secretar}^, Doctor Abbot, 

 is a member. Doctor Goddard's experiments are now going on under 

 these auspices in New Mexico. It is a pleasure to record here that 

 the Smithsonian has again been able to support during its more or 

 less uncertain pioneering stages an investigation of great promise 

 for the increase of knowledge. 



