Robert Hutchings Goddard Launches First Liquid Fueled Rocket

Date: March 17, 1926 A.D.
Author: Robert Hutchings Goddard, American Rocket Scientist and Engineer

Dear Journal,
     The world's first liquid fueled rocket was launched yesterday. It reached an altitude of 41 feet and landed 184 feet from the launch point. Would Jules Verne have lived to see this he would have just beamed.
     Although the release was pulled, the rocket did not rise at first, but the flame came out and then at express speed curving over to the left, striking the ice and snow, still going at a rapid rate. It looked almost magical as it rose, without any appreciably greater noise or flame as if it said, "I've been here long enough. I think I'll be going somewhere else, if you don't mind. However my wife, Esther, thinks she heard it say, "I think I'll get the hell out of here."
     I did not inform many about this milestone in rocketry. If I did, many will consider it a trivial matter and some might send me letters asking to be booked for the next flight to the moon. That is degrading to my work. But hopefully in the near-future, people will embrace rocketry for its more practical applications. 
     One such application of a rocket will be for missiles for war, although the army is not quite interested. Another use will be to send instruments to high altitudes to study atmospheric conditions and take photos of the Earth, which I am preparing to do in a few years with another launch. Going to the moon and beyond it with the rocket will be the most daring application, as Verne and Wells imagined. We might visit the Martians before they visit us as in War of the Worlds. Speaking of Wells, I will write to him soon, thanking for the fascination he granted me about high altitude research.
I hope my 1919 paper A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes will have inspired others like Vernes and Wells inspired me, though in a different way. There is no end to improving upon my foundation-building work. We will always be able to improve on existing rocket designs and maybe invent other vessels to travel to the stars. And remember, the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.