2. Gas Engine Experiment (Supplement IV)
In 1926, Robert M. Goddard, a professor of physics at Clark University in Massachusetts, fired a
liquid fuel rocket. It was not very big and went up only about 200 feet. But it worked well! He kept
experimenting with bigger and better rockets. Some of his rockets went up more than a mile. Because
of his experiments and the advances he made in rocketry, Robert Goddard is called the Father of
Rocketry. (8)While early rocket experiments were going on and rockets were going higher and higher, scientists
were experimenting with other modes of flight. Air balloons were tried. These early balloons went
wherever the wind took them. In 1804 a man named George Cyley built and flew a glider. The Wright
Brothers were the first inventors to send up a controllable airplane.Talk about how courageous these men were. They risked their lives many times to test their inventions.
Inventors continued to improve on these early air travel vehicles. Some improvements/inventions
became crucial in distance travel and in warfare. Because of these American inventions and because
some of our scientists were developing rockets with tremendous power, the American people thought
our country would be the first to send an object into outer space. That isn't what happened.On Oct. 4, 1957, the Russians launched an 184 pound artificial satellite called Sputnik. It was silver
and about the size of a basketball. It orbited the earth and returned. There was a lot of surprise among
the Americans; there was consternation, soul-searching, and self-criticism. People asked, "How come
they beat us?" Some wanted to blame the schools for not teaching enough science. There were
debates, articles in the paper, and speeches in meetings. Meanwhile, scientists in our country already
working on a similar satellite, worked even harder. Four months later we launched our first satellite,
called Explorer. It looked a lot like Sputnik.In 1958 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed. The Congress gave
this organization a lot of money to speed up our space program.As the 1960s began, the race in space was in full swing. It was a peaceful contest, but a race,
nonetheless. We trailed the Russians in technology for some time. In the spring of 1961, they beat us
again. They put a man into orbit (Yuri Gagarin). We put a man up a month later. Alan Shepard
became the first American to make a space flight. His flight only lasted 15 minutes, and was suborbital.
(That means he didn't go clear around the earth.) In fact, he landed 302 miles from the launch site, but
his spacecraft had gone into space.In 1962 we put our first man into orbit. His name is John Glenn. He circled the earth three times in less
than five hours. He radioed back telling everyone how beautiful the earth looked from space. Tell the
students that John Glenn is a Senator and will be going into space again on a future Shuttle mission.President John Kennedy made a pledge to the American people. He said, "We choose to go to the
moon in this decade." We did just that. Pres. Kennedy proposed to congress, "Now is the time . . . for
this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to
our future on earth." Somewhere in the mid-sixties we passed the Russians in technology, launching
heavier and heavier vehicles with more and more thrust. Then, in a blazing climax witnessed on
television by 600 million people around the world, astronaut Neil Armstrong opened the hatch of his
lunar module on July 20, 1969, and stepped out to put man's first footprint on the moon. "That's one
small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," he said.3. Check with your film/video source. There is a great film about this event.
To better understand the magnitude of the accomplishment to send a man to the moon we will study
about the work projects that made the goal possible. First, let's talk about the astronauts and what life
is like in "space".Talk about Congress appropriating the money, NASA training of the men, various companies
developing the equipment, and the 1000s of people involved in all aspects of the program, i.e.,
scientists, astronauts, computer programmers, technicians, mechanics, doctors, etc.
