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Robert Goddard has been called the father of American  rocketry and space flight. He was born in 1882 in Worcester, Massachusetts.   Goddard became interested in rockets after reading  science fiction books by H.G. Wells.  In 1919, he wrote a scientific paper that said a demonstration rocket should be sent to the Moon.  People thought his ideas were crazy.  Goddard continued his work with rockets. He discovered that solid propellants were not enough to lift rockets beyond the Earth's  gravitational pull. Liquid propellants were necessary. In 1926, he successfully launched the first rocket using liquid propellant.

Goddard was the first to prove that a rocket works in a vacuum. He also worked out the mathematics of rocket action. Among his inventions is a rocket with propellant pumps, gyro controls, and  instrumentation.

By the time he died in 1945, Goddard had 214 patents that related to rocketry. He did not live long enough to see the Apollo missions reach  the Moon and prove his theories correct. He is an important figure in  the history of American rocket science.

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