"Howard Carter" wrote in message
news
Thanks...

I think I might pass on it. You mentioned the Lehman biography. Do you
recommend that?


No, I don't. It was written by Milton Lehman in 1963 and titled "This High
Man: The Life of Robert H. Goddard". It was republished in 1988 under
the title of "Robert H. Goddard: Pioneer of Space Research".

Lehman had been a publicist for the Motion Picture Association of America
and
was hired to write a biography to be published by Farrar, Straus, and Young.
Roger Straus, head of that publishing house, was the nephew of Harry
Guggenheim. Guggenheim had been a close personal friend of Bob Goddard.
Esther Goddard, the widow, controlled access to the personal papers,
choosing
which documents Lehman could see. She also had control over the final
product. What you get is a very edited and glowing account of a man that
makes him bigger than life.

Again it depends on your interest. If you're interested in the technical
aspects
of his rockets, which I am, you'll be disappointed in both the Lehman and
the
Clary books. Both were written by men who were not engineers or
scientists. One was a publicist for movies, the other a tree expert who
worked
for the U.S. Forest Service. And both were writing on the character of the
man,
one to glorify, the other to bring him down a bit.

I don't know of a good single source discussing Goddard's technical
achievements. Articles and books written by Goddard himself are vague
and consist mainly of prognostications concerning the future of space
flight.

Maybe some of the readers of the group know of some works addressing
what Goddard actually built.

--
WSG
"principio obstate"