“CATAPULT” RUDDER.

Western Star, 2 August 1938, Page 2

“CATAPULT” RUDDER.

. FOR NEW ROCKET SHIP. A new step in the principle of rocketship control has been disclosed in Eden Valley, the huge saucer-shape outdoor laboratory near Roswell, New Mexico, where Dr Robert H. Goddard, of Clark University, is working on the world’s first sounding rocket, says the ‘New York Times.’ At that time Dr Goddard announce-.! a gyro steering mechanism by which a rocket motor could be steered automatically as long as the fuel lasted. The new step is a means of steering after the fuel is gone. At speeds of several hundred miles an hour the catapult momentum, after the fuel has gone, will .carry the rocket nearly one-third "Higher. The motor which Dr Goddard uses burns gasoline, which combines with oxygen as it shoots out of nozzles near the tail of the rocket. Mixing ‘ the oxygen with the gasoline makes one of the most powerful, explosives. These streams are ignited where they a mixing chamber. They flame out of an - opening in the tail of a rocket , with the roar of an express train and the speed of a mile a second.

The new steering device uses this train of rushing, gag. Rudders are placed so that the stream hits them. ' A gyro controls the radders to direct the rocket •traight up. In this manner a rocket .could be, steered in empty space. The objective of the: present rocket is to carry meteorological and scientific instruments higher than balloons. The new methods of steering, to handle the v catapult phase, have been largely worked out. They cannot be made public at present. They' will he reported by Dr Goddard to the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, .which is financing the ' rocket experiments.