ALS in pencil, signed “B,” twelve pages on six stapled Office of Director, MSFC Routing Slip sheets, 5 x 8, dated April 27, 1965. Letter to "Bart," likely Public Affairs Officer Bart Slattery, in part: "Suggest you draft a persona letter from me to Mr. Lehman along following lines:—I still haven't replied to your letter of Feb 28 (attached) but my murderous schedule simply hadn't permitted me to study the manuscript as you requested. But Capt. Slattery has told me that you've been calling several times and so I'd like to clarify the questionable points 'for the record': The name of Goddard became known to me in about 1928. I'm enclosing a photostat copy of the German book 'Mit Raketenkraft ins Weltall' by Otto Willi Gail, published 1928 by K. Thienemann's Verlag, Stuttgart. It was this publication thru which I first learned about Goddard. Note that the book mentions Goddard solely in connection with solid propellant rockets (although I know now that 2 years earlier he had already launched the world's first liquid fuel rocket). Also note the repeated hints about military security imposed on Goddard's book, making it difficult for a writer to find out what he was doing at the time." In fine condition, with central horizontal crease staple hoes to top left corner tips and absent corner top to first page. Prior to World War II, Germany showed great interest in the work of American physicist Robert H. Goddard, who had launched the first liquid-fueled rocket on March 16, 1926. Inspired by Goddard’s work, von Braun and his research team at Kummersdorf created the Aggregat series of ballistic missiles throughout the 1930s, with the A-4 model, more famously known as the V-2 rocket, serving as a direct descendent of the Redstone rockets that launched the American space program.
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