With just under a month to go until the 100th anniversary of Clark alumnus and professor Robert H. Goddard’s launch of the world’s first liquid fuel rocket, members of Worcester’s political and academic communities gathered at a Feb. 17 press conference to discuss the First Launch Centennial and the various events planned.
Clark Digital Projects Librarian Catherine Stebbins (pictured above) noted that the University has the most extensive collection of Goddard memorabilia anywhere, as well as exclusive rights to his wife Esther’s photo albums and videos. Stebbins and her Goddard Library colleagues have been working for more than a year to digitize the collection.
After Robert Goddard’s death in 1945, Esther worked tirelessly to organize his papers, diaries, patents, and more, presenting the collection to Clark in three batches in 1963, 1978, and 1979. The collection even includes paintings by the physicist.
“The contents of the Clark collection bring Robert Goddard to life. There is a personal intimacy within his drawings and his handwritten entries in the tiny diaries he kept every day. It’s hard to describe,” Stebbins added.
Goddard conducted the first liquid fuel rocket launch on March 16, 1926, in a field on his aunt’s farm in nearby Auburn. In his diary, he noted, “It looked almost magical as it rose, without any appreciably greater noise or flame, as if it said, ‘I’ve been here long enough; I think I’ll be going somewhere else if you don’t mind.’”
Clark will host several events, including speakers and an exhibit of Goddard artifacts, during the launch anniversary week (see sidebar). The University has also lent several key artifacts to the Goddard exhibit at the Museum of Worcester.
“Goddard’s work and legacy are very present and visible at Clark,” Stebbins said. A permanent Goddard exhibit on the second floor of the library is on view whenever the building is open, a plaque on the Math/Physics Building commemorates the physicist, and the campus will soon have a National Space Trail marker, she said.
The Clark campus is also home to the only permanent, national monument to Robert Goddard, which Congress passed by joint resolution in 1965. The sculpture, funded by NASA and Clark, depicts the parabolic trajectory of a rocket as it leaves Earth. Designed by David von Schlegell and dedicated in 1978, the monument is located in Atwood Plaza, in the shadow of the library that bears Goddard’s name.
Tuesday’s press conference took place at the Robert and Esther Goddard Center for Innovation — the Goddard family home at 1 Tallawanda Drive, Worcester, where Robert was born in 1882. The home is owned by The Wonder Mission, a nonprofit whose Goddard Project initiative is dedicated to celebrating the legacy of “the father of modern rocketry.”
At the press conference, which was hosted by Mayor Joe Petty, Worcester Polytechnic Institute President Grace Wang said that before receiving his bachelor’s degree from WPI, Goddard conducted his first experiments there — including one that sent faculty running for fire extinguishers. “Our people didn’t say no to Robert Goddard,” she said.
Goddard earned his master’s and doctoral degrees at Clark in 1910 and 1911, respectively, and began his Clark teaching career as an instructor in 1914. He was appointed a professor in 1920 and director of the department in 1923, a position he held until he left the Clark faculty in 1943.
The Museum of Worcester will host the official centennial exhibit, “Worcester to the Stars,” which will open on March 16 and remain on display until August 1. The exhibit will include items and images from Clark, WPI, NASA, the Roswell Museum and Art Center, David Clark Company (the Worcester-based creator of the spacesuit), and others, and will also celebrate Esther Goddard. Admission to the museum will be free for the centennial week.
“The exhibit and stories of innovators like Dr. Goddard remind us of Worcester’s significant place in our shared history,” said Vanessa Bumpus, the museum’s exhibition coordinator. “We always remind people that you can’t get to the moon without Worcester.”
The EcoTarium, a museum of science and nature in Worcester, will host a special Centennial Celebration on Sunday, March 15. Director Noreen Johnson Smith noted that the EcoTarium is a fitting location to celebrate Goddard, as Esther Goddard and Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell were among those who cut the ribbon for the facility in 1971.
The town of Auburn will celebrate the centennial with two events: a family event and rededication of Goddard Park on March 14, and a celebration at Pakachoag Golf Course — the site of the 1926 launch — on March 16. According to Auburn Fire Chief Stephen Coleman, the goal is to launch 100 rockets throughout the day, with the launch of a replica of Goddard’s original rocket in the afternoon.
“The town of Auburn is very proud of our part in history,” Coleman said.
Charles Slatkin ’74, director of The Wonder Mission, noted that Goddard is sometimes called “the forgotten father of the space age,” and he hopes the centennial year will start to change that. “It’s a year to get Robert Goddard on the map,” starting with Goddard’s hometown.
“I want Worcester to embrace his legacy and celebrate the city’s role in ushering in the space age,” he said, “and I want all Worcester residents, and especially all Worcester kids, to feel that sense of pride and ownership that we have with this wonderful, iconic hero.”
Slatkin said multiple National Space Trail markers have already been installed in Worcester, including at City Hall, with others to come — including at South High and Worcester Regional Airport.
The celebration week will conclude with a special event at the Hanover Theater for the Performing Arts, featuring speakers including Dr. Alan Stern, former NASA associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, and Dr. Mackenzie Lystrup, former director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
A Worcester Public School student will read the valedictorian address that Robert Goddard gave at the city’s South High in 1904, in which the physicist famously said, “It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.”