Robert Goddard Launches First Liquid-Fuel Rocket

On March 16, 1926, American physicist Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket from his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. The rocket, fueled by gasoline and liquid oxygen, flew for 2.5 seconds, reached an altitude of 41 feet, and landed 184 feet away in a cabbage patch. The New York Times had mocked Goddard in 1920 for suggesting rockets could work in the vacuum of space. He spent the next 19 years quietly perfecting his designs in Roswell, New Mexico, developing gyroscopic stabilization, fuel pumps, and other technologies essential to modern rocketry. Goddard died in 1945 without seeing his work's impact. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is named in his honor, and the Times issued a correction in 1969 — the day after the Moon landing.