Robert H. Goddard

First-edition Smithsonian printing of A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes.

• Robert H. Goddard (American).
• Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1919.
• Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections Volume 71, Number 2.
• 69 pages.
• Octavo.
• 25 photographic illustrations on 10 plates.
• Bound in original printed wrappers.
• Housed in green morocco backed slipcase and chemise.

One of the earliest publications on rocketry and space flight, and "the most influential and important of Goddard’s scientific papers ... The short treatise offered detailed mathematical proof that solid propellant rockets were capable of boosting modest instrument packages into the upper atmosphere. Determined to underscore the serious nature of his work, Goddard relegated his notes on the possibility of achieving spaceflight to the end of the paper, and he covered the possibility of multistage rockets and high-energy liquid propellants in appendices. The Smithsonian publication established Goddard as one of the three great, pioneering figures, along with the Russian Konstantine E. Tsiolkovskii and the Transylvania-born Hermann Oberth, in the history of spaceflight." (ANB)