The Goddard Rocket Film Reels

Reel 05: Rocket Development, September 1934 – March 1935

Type

Video

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Date

1934-1935

Description

The Goddard Rocket Film Reels consists of twelve four-hundred-foot 16mm black-and-white film reels documenting Robert Goddard's experimental work with rockets in Auburn, Massachusetts, Roswell, New Mexico, and Annapolis, Maryland from 1926 through 1945. These reels were restruck in the mid-1960s, which were then digitized several years ago. Some, and very likely all, of these home movies were shot by Robert's wife Esther C. Goddard.

Reel 5 consists of rocket experiments from the start of Robert and Esther Goddard's second move to Roswell, New Mexico for Guggenheim funded research. This second residence would last much longer than the first, from 1934 to 1942. The flights captured in this footage range across Goddard's 'A' series of tests. The 'A' series of tests used simple pressure feed, gyroscopic control using vanes, and parachutes. The rockets in this series averaged in length from 13 feet 6 inches to 15 feet 3/4 inches; their weight empty varied from 58 to 85 pounds.

This list of intertitles gives a detailed account of the footage contained in this reel:

(00:09) The shop was again put in running order, and the equipment at the tower for the flights was replaced
(00:27) The Marley Ranch, on the Way to the Launching Tower, 1934
(00:42) A new sheet iron screen being placed around the tower
(01:41) A gyroscopic stabilizer was constructed for the rocket
(01:58) This stabilizer operated the vanes by gas pressure
(02:29) The stabilizer was tested by inclining the rocket. Note the red stripe on the rocket, to show if any rotation occurred in flight
(03:02) The vanes operated even when the rocket rotated slowly about an inclined axis
(03:19) The first of the new series of rockets being placed in the tower. The flight of February 16, 1935 (A3)
(03:48) A part of the new control system is the nitrogen pressure cylinder, turned on just before the flight
(04:09) The launching is controlled at the 1000-ft. Shelter, by an operator who watches the pressure gauge
(04:17) The flight of March 6, 1935, with streamlining and control by a pendulum stabilizer (A4)
(05:25) After the flight (celebrating)
(05:39) Test of the control vanes of a streamlined gyro-controlled model
(06:22) The flight of the streamlined, gyro-controlled model, March 28, 1935 (A5) (07:02) A6
(07:15) A7
(07:35) The flight of May 31, 1935. Note continued correcting in flight. Maximum height, 7500 feet; maximum speed, about 500 miles per hour. (A8)
(08:32) A9
(08:50) A10
(10:11) Instruments Used in Test
(10:21) A11
(10:47) A12
(10:59) Flight showing improved stabilization. Note the slow rise from the tower. (A14)

Duration

00:12:16

Genre

home movies

Keywords

Robert H. Goddard, rocketry, home movies, motion picture film, gyroscopes, vanes

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