Fuel Tank, Rocket Engine, R.H. Goddard, 1920s

Cylinder, with cone adjoined to top; cone unevenly cut (by tin snips) around bottom, with welded seam down one side; weld seam also along one side of cylinder and in line with seam along adjoined cone; one hollow tube, 0.25 inches in diameter, protruding from bottom of cylinder; another tube, also 0.25 inches in diameter, protruding from underneath cone; this tube at slight angle from the vertical; overall color, brown This is the fuel tank of one of the early liquid propellant rockets of the American rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard and dates to the mid to late 1920s. The top of the top of the tank consists of a cone because this was the easiest and quickest method of construction of the top of a vessel compared with attempting to make a dome construction. The cone was easily made by cutting a circle out of thin steel plate then a small slice of it cut away, and the rest of the disc drawn together with a seam welded along it to form the cone. The cone was then welded onto the cylindrical tank. The pipe projecting from the bottom of the cylinder is the propellant outlet while the pipe projecting from the side, at a slight angle, is probably the pressurant pipe to force the fuel (gasoline) into the combustion chamber. Goddard's later rockets were larger and more sophisticated and his fuel and oxidizer tanks both featured domes. However, he maintained the use of gasoline as the fuel and liquid oxygen as the propellant. It is not known whether Goddard used the fuel tank shown here in a flight vehicle but it is known that this hand-made fuel tank was fashioned at his test site in or near Worcester, Massachusetts. The fuel tank shown here was donated to the Smithsonian in 1959 by Mrs. Robert H. Goddard.