Good morning, Whitewater.
Monday will be partly sunny with a high of seventy. Sunrise is 7:03 and sunset 7:02, for 11h 59m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 21.4% of it visible disk illuminated.
Sometimes a videographer is in the right place at someone else’s wrong time, as was true for someone who recorded Pastor Maldonado’s crash at the 2015 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix:
(Maldonado was unhurt.)
Robert Goddard, bundled against the cold weather of March 16, 1926, holds the launching frame of his most notable invention — the first liquid-fueled rocket. Via Wikipedia
On this day in 1926, Robert Goddard successfully launches a liquid-fueled rocket:
Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945) was an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket,[1][2] which he successfully launched on March 16, 1926. Goddard and his team launched 34 rockets[3] between 1926 and 1941, achieving altitudes as high as 2.6 km (1.6 mi) and speeds as high as 885 km/h (550 mph).[3]
Goddard’s work as both theorist and engineer anticipated many of the developments that were to make spaceflight possible.[4] He has been called the man who ushered in the Space Age.[5]:xiii Two of Goddard’s 214 patented inventions — a multi-stage rocket (1914), and a liquid-fuel rocket (1914) — were important milestones toward spaceflight.[6] His 1919 monograph A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes is considered one of the classic texts of 20th-century rocket science.[7][8] Goddard successfully applied three-axis control, gyroscopes and steerable thrust to rockets, to effectively control their flight.
Although his work in the field was revolutionary, Goddard received very little public support for his research and development work. The press sometimes ridiculed his theories of spaceflight. As a result, he became protective of his privacy and his work. Years after his death, at the dawn of the Space Age, he came to be recognized as the founding father of modern rocketry.[9][10][11] He not only recognized the potential of rockets for atmospheric research, ballistic missiles and space travel but was the first to scientifically study, design and construct the rockets needed to implement those ideas.[12]…
Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled (gasoline and liquid oxygen) rocket on March 16, 1926, in Auburn, Massachusetts. Present at the launch were his crew chief, Henry Sachs, Esther Goddard, and Percy Roope, who was Clark’s assistant professor in the physics department. Goddard’s diary entry of the event was notable for its understatement:
March 16. Went to Auburn with S[achs] in am. E[sther] and Mr. Roope came out at 1 p.m. Tried rocket at 2.30. It rose 41 feet & went 184 feet, in 2.5 secs., after the lower half of the nozzle burned off. Brought materials to lab….[13]:143
His diary entry the next day elaborated:
March 17, 1926. The first flight with a rocket using liquid propellants was made yesterday at Aunt Effie’s farm in Auburn…. Even though the release was pulled, the rocket did not rise at first, but the flame came out, and there was a steady roar. After a number of seconds it rose, slowly until it cleared the frame, and then at express train speed, curving over to the left, and striking the ice and snow, still going at a rapid rate.[13]:143
The rocket, which was later dubbed “Nell”, rose just 41 feet during a 2.5-second flight that ended 184 feet away in a cabbage field,[51] but it was an important demonstration that liquid propellants were possible. The launch site is now a National Historic Landmark, the Goddard Rocket Launching Site.
Puzzability begins a new weekly series today, for St. Patrick’s week, focused on green:
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This Week’s Game — March 16-20
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Green Party
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We’ve minted some new questions for jaded solvers. In this St. Patrick’s Day trivia quiz, the answer to each day’s question is a name or title that includes a shade of green.
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Example:
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For what 1978 movie did director Michael Cimino suggest that little-known Meryl Streep write her own lines to flesh out her underdeveloped role?
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Answer:
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The Deer Hunter
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What to Submit:
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Submit the name or title (as “The Deer Hunter” in the example) for your answer.
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Monday, March 16
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