Liquid-propellant rocket development

8vo, pp. 10; 11 plates; original printed wrappers; ex-Hill Library, with call number on upper wrapper, and perforated stamp on title page and one text leaf, spine split and wrappers loose though present; good or better. One of the fathers of modern rocketry, "Goddard worked out the theory of rocket propulsion independently . . . Having explored the mathematical practicality of rocketry since 1906 and the experimental workability of reaction engines in laboratory vacuum tests since 1912, Goddard began to accumulate ideas for probing beyond the Earth's stratosphere. His first two patents in 1914, for a liquid-fuel gun rocket and a multistage step rocket, led to some modest recognition and financial support from the Smithsonian Institution. Goddard achieved a series of workable liquid-fuel flights starting in 1926. "Through the patronage of Charles A. Lindbergh, the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, and the Carnegie and Smithsonian Institutions, the Goddards and their small staff were able to move near Roswell, New Mexico. There, during most of the 1930s, Goddard demonstrated, despite many failures in his systematic static and flight tests, progressively more sophisticated experimental boosters and payloads, reaching speeds of 700 miles per hour and altitudes above 8000 feet in several test flights." This is the second and final monograph by Goddard on the subject of rocket propulsion. The first was published 1919.…