structural:reformatting, structural:expansion, structural:scholar_edition, stylistic:style_transfer, linguistic:paraphrasing
Lack of vision in the United States

Before World War II there was a lack of vision and serious interest in the United States concerning the potential of rocketry, especially in Washington. Although the Weather Bureau was interested beginning in 1929 in Goddard's rocket for atmospheric research, the Bureau could not secure governmental funding. Between the World Wars, the Guggenheim Foundation was the main source of funding for Goddard's research. Goddard's liquid-fueled rocket was neglected by his country, according to aerospace historian Eugene Emme, but was noticed and advanced by other nations, especially the Germans. Goddard showed remarkable prescience in 1923 in a letter to the Smithsonian. He knew that the Germans were very interested in rocketry and said he "would not be surprised if the research would become something in the nature of a race," and he wondered how soon the European "theorists" would begin to build rockets. In 1936, the U.S. military attaché in Berlin asked Charles Lindbergh to visit Germany and learn what he could of their progress in aviation. Although the Luftwaffe showed him their factories and were open concerning their growing airpower, they were silent on the subject of rocketry. When Lindbergh told Goddard of this behavior, Goddard said, "Yes, they must have plans for the rocket. When will our own people in Washington listen to reason?"

Most of the U.S.'s largest universities were also slow to realize rocketry's potential. Just before World War II, the head of the aeronautics department at MIT, at a meeting held by the Army Air Corps to discuss project funding, said that the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) "can take the Buck Rogers Job." In 1941, Goddard tried to recruit an engineer for his team from MIT but could not find one who was interested. There were some exceptions: MIT was at least teaching basic rocketry, and Caltech had courses in rocketry and aerodynamics. After the war, Jerome Hunsaker of MIT, having studied Goddard's patents, stated that "Every liquid-fuel rocket that flies is a Goddard rocket."

While away in Roswell, Goddard was still head of the physics department at Clark University, and Clark allowed him to devote most of his time to rocket research. Likewise, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) permitted astronomer Samuel Herrick to pursue research in space vehicle guidance and control, and shortly after the war to teach courses in spacecraft guidance and orbit determination. Herrick began corresponding with Goddard in 1931 and asked if he should work in this new field, which he named astrodynamics. Herrick said that Goddard had the vision to advise and encourage him in his use of celestial mechanics "to anticipate the basic problem of space navigation." Herrick's work contributed substantially to America's readiness to control flight of Earth satellites and send men to the Moon and back.