by Reinhard Kargl, March 16, 2026

Today is the 100th anniversary of the first launch of a liquid fueled rocket. In a snowy field near Auburn, Massachusetts, the feat was accomplished by American rocket pioneer Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945).

According to Goddard’s field notes, the contraption nicknamed “Nell” reached an altitude of 41 feet (12.5), during a total flight time of 2.5 seconds. There were only a few witnesses: Goddard’s 25-year old wife Esther (serving as photographer), Goddard’s crew chief Henry Sachs, and Clark University assistant physics professor Percy Roope. Some boys who were out sledding happened to pass by and were mesmerized by the surreal display of an object being launched into the air.

Before the launch of “Nell” on March 16, 1926. Photo (most likely) by Esther Goddard.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that anything but fragments of the historical rocket are still around. Goddard and his compatriots took the parts to their workshop, and most parts were reused.

Goddard was a staunch American patriot. At a time when the military was still very skeptical of any military potential for rockets (or plainly ridiculed the idea), Goddard tirelessly advocated for research and development of rockets for military use. Long before commercial uses for rockets, military funding must have seemed vastly more rational than asking for money to pursue another grandiose idea: that of using rockets to leave the Earth and fly to space. The latter concept had captured Goddard’s imagination since childhood. But aside from a few visionaries, most serious engineers and scientists at the time thought of such ideas as just plain silly, unviable, and ridiculous. (Meanwhile in Europe, Hermann Oberth mirrored Goddard’s ambitions for leaving the Earth’s atmosphere and sending rockets to space).

Robert Goddard lecturing at Clark University

Much of the work Goddard did for the military was rather secretive. And this wasn’t just because of the need to keep weapons development secret, but also because funding rocket research from military budgets would have been controversial, to say the least, even within the military.

It appears to me that Goddard was discretely involved in military research very early on in his career. Re-reading some of Goddard’s biography, I came across an interesting tidbit in the notice announcing his death, published by the New York Times of August 11, 1945.

In the very last paragraph, it casually notes:

During the first World War he was research director for the United States Signal Corps, both at Worcester and at Mount Wilson Observatory in California.

“Worcester” might refer to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where Goddard enrolled in physics classes in 1904, and eventually became a laboratory assistant and tutor. Goddard remained at WPI until 1908, then began his graduate studies at Clark University in Worcester in the fall of 1909.

While studying at Clark, Goddard continued working in Salisbury Labs at WPI and anecdotally caused a damaging explosion, whereupon his work was moved to the Magnetic Lab. In 1912, Goddard accepted a research fellowship at Princeton University’s Palmer Physical Laboratory.

But this was all before WW-1. Therefore, the reference in the New York Times would either be incorrect, or Goddard had already started working on secret “side projects” on behalf of the military as early as during his graduate studies at Clark, beginning in 1909, or possibly even earlier, at WPI.

So what was he secretly working on?

The project was a man-portable recoilless anti-tank rocket launcher weapon, nicknamed the “stovepipe” or “bazooka”. The development of the bazooka involved the development of two specific lines of technology: the rocket-powered weapon and a “shaped charge” warhead. Goddard was probably commissioned to work on the solid fuel rocket and its launch tube. In other words, the delivery system for the warhead.

Reportedly, Goddard and his co-worker Clarence N. Hickman successfully demonstrated the weapon to the U.S. Army Signal Corps at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, on November 6, 1918. But as the Compiègne Armistice was signed only five days later, the project was halted. (It reemerged for the WW-2 effort, at which point Hickman had taken the lead, and Goddard may no longer have been involved at all).

What about the New York Times’ reference to Mount Wilson Observatory? This one is rather intriguing. Obviously, a secluded astronomical observatory on a California mountaintop would seem like a rather unlikely place for rocket research.

Although notes linking Goddard to Mount Wilson can be found in several sources, none of them are original, and I found no definitive evidence. All I was able to locate is a photograph.

In its archive, Clark University has a picture of Robert Goddard “loading 1918 forerunner of “bazooka” of World War II, Mount Wilson, California”, according to Esther Goddard’s annotation. However, since Goddard and Esther weren’t a couple at the time, this image (if it is indeed from 1918) could not have been taken by Esther. Besides, since a woman’s presence at the all-male Mount Wilson Observatory would have created quite a stir in 1918, we can all but rule out Esther as a first hand witness. Most likely, her annotation was made much later, possibly long after her husband’s death in 1945. Therefore, her annotation does nothing to establish a location. The widow merely recorded something she recalled being told about her late husband’s work.

I take the view, pending evidence to the contrary, that this picture wasn’t taken on Mount Wilson, and that Robert Goddard was never really present there. His supposed work at the observatory was probably just a convenient cover story concocted by someone at the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

It is however possible that the cover story was deemed necessary because Goddard may have had some contacts, interviewed for a job, or done some work at Caltech around that time. Caltech is just down the mountain, so there is at least a geographic proximity. Perhaps the Signal Corps wanted to shield Goddard and the bazooka project. Or perhaps Goddard himself wanted to keep a possible visit and connection to Caltech concealed from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Clark University, and Princeton University?

Who knows?