The dream that did not die

Robert H. Goddard who many acclaim the Father of modern rocketry launched his first liquid fueled rocket on March 16, 1926. From 1930 to 1935 he launched rockets that attained speeds of up to 885 km/hour (550 miles/hour).Once on conjecture he mentioned that a moon landing was highly possible.The ridicule descended:

... "after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey it will neither be accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that." ..."does not know of the relation of action to reaction, and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react" and even talked of "such things as intentional mistakes or oversights." Goddard, the Times declared, apparently suggesting bad faith, "only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."

Forty nine years afterward, on July 17,1969, the day after the launch of Apollo 11, the New York Times published a short item under the headline "A Correction," summarizing its 1920 editorial mocking Goddard, and concluding: "Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error."

From this ridicule Goddard retreated to Roswell, N.M, yes the center of the UFO craze.Life is sometimes more mysterious than fiction.

History has vindicated Goddard and his vision of our future as it shall with others now the object of ridicule