“ESTABLISHED GODDARD AS ONE OF THE THREE GREAT, PIONEERING FIGURES… IN THE HISTORY OF SPACEFLIGHT”: FIRST EDITION OF GODDARD’S LANDMARK PAPER ON ROCKETRY AND SPACE EXPLORATION
GODDARD, Robert H. A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1919. Octavo, modern burgundy cloth gilt.
First edition of Goddard’s seminal paper proposing the use of rocket propulsion to attain escape velocity and land a projectile on the moon, illustrated with ten pages of black-and-white photographs.
The "first monograph in English on the use of rockets for space travel" (Ciancone 84), Goddard's "short treatise offered detailed mathematical proof that solid propellant rockets were capable of boosting modest instrument packages into the upper atmosphere. Determined to underscore the serious nature of his work, Goddard relegated his notes on the possibility of achieving spaceflight to the end of the paper, and he covered the possibility of multistage rockets and high-energy liquid propellants in appendices" (ANB). To his dismay, those possibilities captured the press' attention and brought Goddard "distorted publicity" (DSB V:433) and ridicule. Even so, Goddard "almost alone designed, built, tested and flew the first liquid-fuel rocket on March 16, 1926" (DSB V:433). "The Smithsonian publication established Goddard as one of the three great, pioneering figures, along with the Russian Konstantine E. Tsiolkovskii and the Transylvania-born Hermann Oberth, in the history of spaceflight" (ANB). "Actually published in 1920, despite stated publication date of 1919" (Ciancone 84). Original rear wrapper bound in. Horblit II:470.
Fine condition.