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In the 1920s, Professor Robert
Goddard, inventor of the liquid fueled rocket, came up with this
pioneering idea for getting into space: a winged rocket ship.
Something tells me that Prof. Goddard was still lacking confidence in
how practical rockets might be, because in this model he was
definitely hedging his bets.
If you look at the stern of the
ship you'll see a pair of strange wheel-like contraptions next to the
rocket exhaust. These are turbines that use the force of the jet
to turn a pair of drive shafts to power airscrews on the wings.
The idea was to use the screws to propel the craft until it left the
Earth's atmosphere, then disengage the turbines and it's on to the
Moon on rocket power. Not surprisingly, this arrangement went
nowhere. Not only is the turbine and props bit redundant and
singularly inefficient, but the swap over from prop to rocket could
give a whole new meaning to riding the clutch. |
