Rocket pioneer recalls start of career

When Robert Goddard moved to Roswell, N.M., in the 1930s, trucking in mysterious long objects that residents knew had to be rockets, a 10th-grader named Lowell N. Randall was curious and fascinated. "I wanted to go to work for that guy," Randall said last week.

In an interview two days before his 89th birthday, Randall recalled his repeated attempts to find employment with the man now acknowledged as the father of modern rocketry. Randall went on to a distinguished career with the U.S. space program.

He is believed to be the last surviving member of the Goddard team, pioneers who launched the U.S. space program. Randall was interviewed while in Salt Lake City to address the Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium, meeting at Salt Lake Community College.

"Many of the young graduate students who were in the audience came up and talked with him after his speech," said Gil Moore, retired Utah State University physics professor who accompanied Randall.

Goddard had moved to Roswell, Randall's hometown, to find a quiet, open place for his rocket experiments. Back in Massachusetts, where he was a professor at Clark University, Goddard had been brutally ridiculed over his ideas about rocketry, including the notion that a rocket could someday reach the moon.

Randall graduated from high school in the middle of the Depression and went to work for a furniture store, laying linoleum, hanging blinds and installing carpets. He approached Goddard three times asking for work and was rebuffed.

During the third visit to the Goddard home, the scientist agreed to let him see his workshop. "So he says he'll be about 20 minutes, and then he would call," Randall said. "So he went back out to his shop, which was just about 50 yards from his house.

"Twenty minutes later I went out there, and I was looking forward to seeing this rocket. All I saw was a beautiful machine shop," a clean workshop with machinery on tables. "There was something over there at the side of the building, all covered up with sheets," he added.

Goddard had shrouded his rocket with canvas.

Later, Randall was attending ground school for a pilot's license, and Goddard gave a demonstration on the principle of the gyroscope. Randall happened to be seated beside Goddard's wife, Esther.

Randall had been working on a gyroscope that could sense an aircraft's speed and had built a prototype. He asked Mrs. Goddard "if I could bring my invention around to have it evaluated by Dr. Goddard."

She agreed, and he showed up at the appointed time, right after dinner.