http://www.space.com/32311-robert-goddard-liquid-fueled-rocket-90-anniversary.html Launches of liquid-fueled rockets may be relatively routine today, but 90 years ago, they were brand-new. In fact, the first liquid-fueled rocket launched on March 16, 1926, under the direction of rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard. –

Goddard’s first liquid-fueled rocket was small and did not fly all that high, but it marked a big change in how rocketry is done. Previously, all rocket launches had been done with solid materials. That work dated back to the 13th century, when Chinese engineers used gunpowder when repelling enemies. – It took 17 years of work for Goddard’s first launch to fly.

“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,’” Goddard wrote in his journal the next day, according to a NASA statement.

Goddard dreamed of seeing interplanetary travel made possible. It didn’t happen while he was still alive — he died in 1945 — but liquid rocketry became very important in space history.

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It is often true that recognition comes posthumously.

roughbarked said:

It is often true that recognition comes posthumously.

My grand father’s clock was too tall for the shelf so it stood ninety years on the floor

but it stopped short, never to go again when the old man died.

> It took 17 years of work for Goddard’s first launch to fly.

Yike. I hadn’t known that it took that long.
Almost all amatuer rocketeers these days use either solid fuel or hybrid (solid combustible with liquid oxidiser).

mollwollfumble said:

> It took 17 years of work for Goddard’s first launch to fly.

Yike. I hadn’t known that it took that long.

Ah, I see, 17 years from the first idea, but only 5 years of testing.

mollwollfumble said:

> It took 17 years of work for Goddard’s first launch to fly.

Yike. I hadn’t known that it took that long.
Almost all amatuer rocketeers these days use either solid fuel or hybrid (solid combustible with liquid oxidiser).

bad dry weight versus wet weight ratio unless you can stage though