David A. Clary

David A. Clary is a historian whose books examine military institutions, science, technology, exploration, and public land management. Rocket Man is his biography of Robert H. Goddard, the physicist and inventor whose liquid-fuel experiments helped establish rocketry. Published by Hyperion in 2003 and later issued by Grand Central Publishing, the book carries the subtitle Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age. Clary traces Goddard’s laboratory work, launches in Massachusetts and New Mexico, support from Charles Lindbergh and Harry Guggenheim, and long struggle for recognition and patent rights. The narrative places technical invention beside government hesitation and the later military use of rocket principles. Clary served as chief historian of the United States Forest Service, consulted for government agencies, and taught history in Roswell, a location closely connected to Goddard’s testing program. His other work covers subjects from the Lewis and Clark expedition to American military engineering. Rocket Man reflects that broader interest in how individual research becomes part of national institutions and historical memory.