Robert Goddard Launches Space Age
On this day in 1926, Clark University physics professor Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid fuel rocket — and with it the space age. Standing in a snow-covered field in Auburn, Massachusetts, he watched as the rocket he had built rose 41 feet into the air, flew for two and a half seconds, and landed 184 feet away. Having been widely ridiculed for suggesting that it might be possible for a rocket to reach the moon, he did not publicize his achievement. It would be another 30 years before Robert Goddard was recognized as the father of modern rocketry. In May of 1959, NASA named the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland in memory of the brilliant and visionary scientist from Worcester.
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