Category Archives: Education

The Hermes Program

The Hermes Project was established in 1945 with the General Electric Company to initiate development of long-range rocket and launching equipment. In scope, the project was to encompass all phases of missile research and development to provide a broad base and source of supply of guided missiles. The objectives of the Hermes program were changed from time to time as the national guided missile program developed. The program included every phase of guided missile work with the exception of large scale production and warhead and fuse development.

A Brief History of Rocketry – Early Rockets to Goddard

The earliest rockets were Chinese. They developed crude rockets attached to a stick by 900 A.D. These “arrows of flying fire” were used to repel Mongol invaders at the Battle of Kai-Fung-Fu In 1232. Traveling the Silk Road across Asia, and other trade routes, rockets – called “rochetta” – were seen in Italy by 1379. Joan of Arc would have seen them in France by 1429. Captured rockets from the Indian subcontinent were studied and modified by Sir William Congreve at the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich Arsenal, England, in 1804. Such rockets were fired at Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor in 1814 – “the rockets’ red glare” referred to in The Star Spangled Banner. They and Hale rockets were used during the Mexican War and, on 3 April 1862, Confederate General Jeb Stuart fired rockets on U.S. troops during the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia.