The Goddard Rocket Film Reels

Reel 10: P-Series of Tests (P16-P34), March 1940 - August 1941

Type

Video

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Date

1940-1941

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 10 consists of P16-P34 from Robert Goddard's P-Series of Tests (P1-15 can be found in Reel 9). These tests were experiments in developing propellant pumps (P1-4), developing a gas generator to run turbines (P5-P12), and the start of tests with pump-driven rockets (P13-P36). These static and flight tests from P13 onwards were made of rockets of large fuel capacity, with the rocket motor, pumps, and turbines previously developed. The rockets averaged twenty-two feet in length and were eighteen inches in diameter. Empty, they weighed from one-hundred and ninety to two-hundred and forty pounds, while the liquid oxygen load averaged one-hundred and forty pounds and the gasoline one-hundred and twelve pounds. This made the rockets around a quarter ton when loaded. P23 is the first flight on record using pumps.

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

P-Series of Tests, January 1939 – August 1941, to Develop Pumps for Liquid Oxygen and Gasoline

(00:00) P16
(00:45) P17
(01:38) P18
(01:46) P19
(02:01) P20
(02:55) P21
(03:13) P22
(03:21) P24
(03:31) Test P25: Taken with a Telephoto Lens
(03:44) P26
(04:05) P27
(04:18) P28
(04:28) P32
(04:37) P33
(05:23) P34
(05:35) Two Short Flights with Pumps and Turbines.
(05:38) Test P23, August 9, 1940, Taken from the Unusual Position 1000 feet from Launching Tower, and also from a Closer Position (first recorded flight using propellant pumps)
(06:34) Test P31, May 8, 1941 (second recorded flight using propellant pumps)

Duration

00:06:53

Genre

home movies

Keywords

Robert H. Goddard, rocketry, home movies, motion picture film, pump-fed rockets, turbines, propellant pumps, turbopumps

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