30 September - Stephen Smith, an American engineer and inventor, made history by launching his first mail rocket

 

On September 30, 1934, Stephen Smith, an American engineer and inventor, made history by launching his first mail rocket. This event took place in Greenwood Lake, New York, and it marked an experimental attempt to deliver mail using a small rocket.

Smith's mail rocket, powered by solid fuel, was designed to carry a small payload of mail from one location to another. In this case, he launched it from one side of Greenwood Lake to the other, covering a distance of about one mile. The rocket successfully carried a batch of mail across the lake, making it one of the earliest known instances of mail delivery by rocket.

While Smith's experiment was a notable achievement and garnered attention at the time, it did not lead to widespread adoption of rocket mail as a practical means of mail delivery. The limitations and safety concerns associated with rocket propulsion and the traditional postal system's reliability ultimately limited the development of rocket mail for routine mail delivery.

Nonetheless, Stephen Smith's pioneering effort in 1934 remains a part of the history of early rocketry and mail transportation experiments.