Robert Goddard: A Man and His Rocket
Goddard wrote in his autobiography about an inspiration that came to him as a boy while up in a cherry tree pruning branches: "I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars.... "
In 1907, while a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, Goddard experimented on a rocket powered by gunpowder in the basement of the physics building. Clouds of smoke caused a lot of commotion and the faculty, rather than expel him, took an interest in his work. (Caution: Dale County School System might not be quite as forgiving!)
In 1920, the Smithsonian published his original paper, "A Method for Reaching Extreme Altitudes," in which he included a small section stressing that rockets could be used to send payloads to the Moon. The next day, the New York Times wrote a scathing editorial denouncing his theories as folly. He responded to a reporter's question by stating, "Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realized, it becomes commonplace."A day after Apollo 11 set off for the Moon, in July of 1969, the New York Times printed a correction to its 1920 editorial section, stating that "it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error."
To read more, check out the following link: http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/f_goddard.html
