Born Oct. 5, 1882, in Worcester, Mass.; died Aug. 10, 1945, in Baltimore. American scientist and a rocket pioneer.

Goddard graduated from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1908. In 1914 he began working at Clark University, where he was a professor from 1919 to 1943. He served as director of research for the Bureau of Aeronautics of the United States Department of the Navy from 1942 to 1945. Goddard began to work with problems related to the development and use of rockets in 1907. Between 1914 and 1940 he received 83 patents for inventions in rocket technology, and after 1945 an additional 131 patents were registered in his name from archival materials. He began experimenting with hydrocarbon and oxygen liquid fuel in 1920 and bench-testing liquid-fuel rocket motors using oxygen-ether fuel in 1921. In Worcester in 1926, Goddard for the first time publicly launched a liquid-fuel rocket. The fuel was liquid oxygen and gasoline. In the following years he developed and tested a number of experimental liquid-fuel motors and rockets. A crater on the far side of the moon has been named after Goddard.