Robert Goddard Launches the First Liquid-Fueled Rocket

On March 16, 1926, physicist Robert H. Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket from his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. The rocket, fueled by liquid oxygen and gasoline, flew for 2.5 seconds, reached an altitude of 41 feet, and landed 184 feet away in a cabbage patch. The local newspaper headline read: "Moon rocket misses target by 238,799 1/2 miles." Goddard, ridiculed by the press and dismissed by the scientific establishment (The New York Times published a correction of their 1920 editorial mocking him — in 1969, the day after Apollo 11 launched), continued his research in New Mexico, eventually filing 214 patents covering nearly every aspect of liquid rocketry. His work directly influenced German, American, and Soviet rocket programs that would launch the Space Age.