basically, He revolutionized modern rocketry. Luched his first Liquid propelled rocket in 1926. flew for about 2.5 seconds, however it wasnt the length of light that was important rather the fact that the rocet lifted of the ground.. It allowed the belief in the space age.
Goddard determined the amount of energy which was transformed into the rockets speed, discovering that only 2% resulted in motion, 98% resulted in heat.
Goddard believed the nozzle of his roket was a result of this poor energy transformation, and so began trialing different nozzles, he reached efficiencies of up to 63% conversion to Kinetic energy.
De Lavel produced a turbine which further increased efficiency by 15%... Thsi turbine worked by compressing fuel oxygen mixture. This turbine worked as jets of steam were blown threw it.
His contributons to modern space flight is constant thrust by expulsion of both liquid oxygen and fuel.. the main problem he faced was the increase in temp of combustion chamber, so he had the liquid osygen(very cold) be pumped throught the nozzle before being sprayed within the combustion chamber, This techique is still in use today.
Hope this helped
