Every Day Is Special: March 28 – Gyroscopes Are the Answer! (What's the question?)

Posted on March 28, 2017

"What did Robert Goddard successfully use on this date in 1935 to control a rocket?"

Now we think of Robert Goddard as the one who ushered in the Space Age, because this American engineer and physicist is the guy who built the world's first liquid-fueled rocket.

During his life, the press sometimes ridiculed his ideas, and most of the public didn't know him or applaud him. But NOW we know he was a pioneer, one of the founders of modern rocketry.

Years ago I wrote about Goddard Day (March 16), the anniversary of Goddard's first successful launch in 1926. Today's anniversary occurred nearly a decade later, as Goddard tried to figure out a guidance system that would keep a rocket pointing vertically longer, and then curve into a horizontal flight. This flight reached a then-record 4,800 feet of altitude before roaring off into a horizontal flight.

His answer was a gyroscope mounted on gimbals to electrically control steering vanes that are located in the exhaust.

A what-a-scope mounted on whatsits? Electrically controlling what in what?

A gyroscope is a sort of toplike toy or device with a wheel or disk mounted so that it can spin around an axis - but the axis can change direction. Notice that the axis is not affected by the tilting of the mounting. That's what makes a gyroscope perfect for maintaining the planned direction in a guidance system.

Goddard's gyroscope moved the vanes positioned to divert or change direction of a portion of the exhaust rushing past them during the rocket's flight.