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Robert Goddard, the rocket pioneer. Inventor, dreamer. They called him the moon man and laughed.
But on his own, he went ahead designing, inventing, and testing. His first proving grounds were on his Aunt Effies farm in Auburn, Massachusetts.
The neighbors complained.
By the year 1930, his rockets achieved a speed of 500 miles per hour, and an altitude of 2,000 feet. This was the year in which the 3 Apollo 11 astronauts were born.
Goddard had a vision of the age of space, but the world was too slow to make it happen before his death.
Launched on March 26, 1937, L-13 flew higher than any of the other 35 liquid fueled rockets flown by Robert H. Goddard. From its launch pad at Roswell, New Mexico, it achieved an altitude of an estimated 1.7 miles (2.7 km).
The rocket used a gyroscope to control the air and blast vanes at the bottom of the fins, to keep it vertical during flight. It burned gasoline and liquid oxygen. Overall length was 200-3/8 inches (5.089 m) with a tube diameter of 9 inches (0.229 m).