Goddard’s “Hoopskirt” Rocket Engine Head Detail
Goddard launched this rocket on December 26, 1928, when it went 62 meters (205 feet). The “Hoopskirt” was nicknamed after a 19th-century dress fashion.
This photograph shows the head of the Goddard “Hoopskirt” rocket. At the top is the parachute container, then the gasoline tank and below it the combustion chamber and exhaust nozzle. Liquid oxygen was stored in two tanks at the bottom of the rocket and burned in the combustion chamber with the gasoline.
After three unsuccessful attempts, Goddard finally launched the rocket on December 26, 1928, when it went 62 meters (205 feet) in 3.2 seconds. The “Hoopskirt”—so nicknamed because its hoops resembled a 19th-century dress fashion—was reconstructed later out of the resulting wreckage. In 1959 Goddard’s widow gave it to the Smithsonian.
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
