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Goddard Autobiography to the Moon and Back

This book is in our collection of miniature books.

from http://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=e7a65b44-1b1e-48d1-a2d3-9e48cd86b671&appid=1165

By Alyssa Lukpat, Globe CorrespondentWhen Buzz Aldrin embarked 50 years ago on his historic voyage to the moon aboard Apollo 11, he packed a tiny, credit-card-sized book, “The Autobiography of Robert Hutchings Goddard, Father of the Space Age.’’Goddard, who was a physics professor at Worcester’s Clark University, launched the first liquid-fueled rocket in Auburn in 1926 and is generally considered the father of modern rocketry.For Aldrin, who was the second man to set foot on the moon, there was also a personal connection.Goddard had taught Edwin Aldrin Sr., Buzz’s father. Buzz never met Goddard but cherished his father’s connection with the professor, said Fordyce Williams, a coordinator of archives and special collections at Clark, where the book is on display.The book was published after Goddard’s death, “but I think he would be happy it was published and the fact that it went to the moon would be absolutely incredible for him,’’ Williams said this week as the 50th anniversary of the moon landing approached on Saturday.Goddard’s autobiography includes a story called the “cherry tree vision.’’ When he was 17, in 1899, he was trimming dead branches off a cherry tree and looked over the fields surrounding him, Williams said.“[A]s I looked towards the fields at the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars. . . . I was a different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended for existence at last seemed very purposive,’’ Goddard wrote.In his diary, he wrote that he envisioned the device had “a weight whirling around a horizontal shaft, moving more rapidly above than below’’ — and that “could furnish lift by virtue of the greater centrifugal force at the top of the path.’’Goddard called the day of the cherry tree, Oct. 19, 1899, “anniversary day,’’ and noted it in his diary every year, Williams said. When the cherry tree fell in a hurricane in 1938, he wrote, “Cherry tree down. Have to continue alone.’’Goddard wrote his autobiography shortly after he launched his first rocket, Williams said. He died in 1945 without seeing it published — and without seeing the 1960s space program that would land men on the moon using giant rockets that were descended from those he had pioneered.He also did not live to receive $1 million from the US government, which paid Esther Goddard, his wife, and the Guggenheim Foundation, which funded some of his research, for infringing on Goddard’s rocket patents.The book was published in 1966 by Achille St. Onge, a miniature books publisher in Worcester. St. Onge published 1,926 copies of the book in honor of the year of Goddard’s first launch. The 85-page book, bound in dark blue leather, is about 3 inches tall and 2 inches wide.“The publishing of the book probably would’ve been St. Onge’s idea. He would’ve needed to have gotten the autobiographical materials from Esther, so she obviously gave her OK and gave the materials to publish the book,’’ Williams said.Aldrin brought the book to the moon at the request of St. Onge.“St. Onge sent the book to Buzz Aldrin in June before his flight and said, ‘Take this book with you and leave it on the moon in honor of Goddard,’’’ Williams said.“He was not able to leave it on the moon, but he wrote a letter back to St. Onge in September and said: ‘Thank you for the book. I did take it with me, but I wasn’t allowed to leave it there.’ But he brought it back and said he’d give it to either Esther or Clark.’’Aldrin decided to give the book to Goddard’s widow, who eventually donated it to Clark.Aldrin autographed the book and wrote, “Flown to the moon on board Apollo 11.’’ Visitors can see the book at the university’s Robert H. Goddard Library, along with other items donated by Esther Goddard, including correspondence from Robert Goddard, patents, and photographs.Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Alyssa Lukpat can be reached at alyssa.lukpat@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @AlyssaLukpat.

Immigration Enforcement

Jacob Hornberger discusses evils of immigration enforcement.

At first, enforcement is weak, which means that people circumvent it. That then induces the government to adopt an ever-increasing array of harsh, brutal, ruthless, and tyrannical measures. Yet, owing to the great disparities of economic opportunity between the United States and their countries of origin, immigrants are willing to risk getting caught or even losing their lives. They keep coming, which causes federal officials to crack down even more brutally, ruthlessly, and tyrannically.

That’s why that father and daughter drowned in the Rio Grande recently. The video of their dead bodies on shore was widely published by the mainstream media. The victims were circumventing the tremendous immigration enforcement crackdown along the border. The same holds true for the people who are dying of thirst trying to enter the United States via deserts in the Southwest. The same for those people who die in the backs of 18-wheelers. They are all trying to evade the increasingly harsh enforcement measures designed to keep them out of the United States.

Limit all government data collection

Those who support big government think that government policy can be improved by collecting data. This is just another fatal conceit. The census should only collect data necessary to allocate congressional seats.

All the data collection done for the purpose of generating aggregate statistics by the

Department of State

Department of Treasury

Department of Defense

Department of Justice

Department of Interior

Department of Agriculture

Department of Commerce

Department of Labor

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Department of Transportation

Department of Energy

Department of Education

Department of Veterans Affairs

Department of Homeland Security

Should be stopped

Tusli Gabbard Gets It Right

“For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end.”
Reported by Pat Buchanan

more from Buchanan
Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii during Wednesday night’s Democratic debate. At 38, she was the youngest candidate on stage.

Gabbard proceeded to rip both the “president and his chickenhawk cabinet (who) have led us to the brink of war with Iran.”

In a fiery exchange, Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio countered that America cannot disengage from Afghanistan: “When we weren’t in there they started flying planes into our buildings.”

Don’t Let Nasty Win

Nasty people chase off people only because the nice people expect everyone to be pleasant. The nice give up when they find someone they think is unreasonable.

Ignore the nasty people.

Don’t waste your time trying to convince them, just work to have a majority and out vote them.

When you find someone unpleasant, just tell yourself, I need to find another nice person.

Amoral does not mean Immoral

Gary M. Galles restates some remarks from Leonard Reed in a recent essay published by FEE

Here are some excerpts

” The market is a mechanism, and thus it is wholly lacking in moral and spiritual suasion…it embodies no coercive force whatsoever. “

“Instead of cursing evil, stay out of the market for it; the evil will cease to the extent we cease patronizing it. Trying to rid ourselves of trash by running to government for morality laws is like trying to minimize the effects of inflation by wage, price, and other controls. Both destroy the market, that is, the reflection of ourselves…attempts not to see ourselves as we are.”

Advice for Marco Rubio

I saw your opinion/commentary article published in the Wall Street Journal 6/5/2019. It properly brought to light that investors should not trust accounting statements from Chinese businesses. Your solution to this problem, calling for more government regulation is foolish.

A free market will less regulations, where “let the buyer beware” is more likely to have long term benefits, then establishing regulations attempting to cure yesterday and today’s problems.

Federal regulations are not without costs, Costs that most often accrue to businesses who have no evil intent. These costs then get passed on to all investors, even those who have no interest in Chinese investments. 

The fact that the SEC could not discover a multi-million ponzi scheme by Bernie Madoff that went on for years demonstrates just one example where regulations accomplished little, and provided the moral hazard that investors assumed the government was protecting them.  Your proposal will only increase the demand by the SEC for more federal budget, and more bureaucracy.

We have laws in place to punish wrong doers. Advocating more regulations to try to prevent fraud is an example of shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted.