75 years of liquid rocket fuel

2001/03/16 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Astronautika
• Energia

March 16, 1926 Robert H. Dr. Goddard first used liquid fuel in rockets at Auburn in Massachusetts. The rocket was barely 3 meters and weighed 4.5 kilos with fuel. He climbed to a height of 12 meters. He used a mixture of gasoline and liquid oxygen for fuel. At its base it used the same technology as the Saturn V probe that was used to go to the Moon (384,000 km). Liquid fuel is still used in most non-human launches.

Godard manufactured and took off 35 probes, each more sophisticated than the previous one. Its innovations or advances are the development of the turbo system, the gyroscope stabilization system, aerodynamics, fuel ignition controls, automatic shooting sequencing, travel tracking machines, engine innovations and parachute development for probe recovery. Already in 1912 he advanced that the probes would reach the Moon.

His inventions were also used in the military arena, as he worked in the two world wars for the American army. He died in 1945. On May 1, 1959, NASA opened the largest space science laboratory in Greenbelt, Maryland and was called the Goddard Space Flight Center.