From childhood, Goddard had been fascinated by space travel, finding inspiration in part from H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds. He experimented avidly as an adolescent, attempting to work out the principles and calculations for rockets and space travel. He began studying physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1908 and later entered Clark University where he received his Ph.D. in 1911. As a student he decided that the most effective propellant would be a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Unfortunately, neither was commercially available at the time.

After his schooling, he worked briefly at Princeton as a researcher, then accepted a position in the physics department at his alma mater, Clark University. There, he speculated about travelling in space and published A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, a now classic monograph on the topic. In 1926 he discovered an even more effective liquid fuel combination: gasoline and...