HomeTechnology100 years later, where is Robert Goddard's first liquid-fuel rocket?

100 years later, where is Robert Goddard's first liquid-fuel rocket?

TechnologyMarch 16, 2026
1 min read
100 years later, where is Robert Goddard's first liquid-fuel rocket?
"He didn't preserve it as a sacred object..."

It flew for only two seconds, but its impact is still felt a century later.

Robert Goddard's first liquid-fueled rocket, which lifted off from a snowy field on March 16, 1926, has been written about extensively. Earlier solid-fueled rockets existed, but liquid-fueled rockets promised the sustainability and control needed to send spacecraft and humans into Earth orbit and beyond.

"The rocket's reach was short, but it marked the moment that humanity entered a new era," said Kevin Schindler, author of "Robert Goddard's Massachusetts," speaking at the site of that first launch as part of a centennial commemoration held Saturday in Auburn (March 14). "It proved that liquid fuel could lift a craft skyward—the essential breakthrough that would one day carry humans to the moon."

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Source: Ars Technica

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