Born October 5, 1882 (Worcester, Massachusetts)

Died August 10, 1945 (Annapolis, Maryland)

American physicist, rocket pioneer

Robert Goddard is credited with launching the world's first liquid-propellant rocket. (A liquid-propellant rocket is fired with liquid fuel. Prior to the twentieth century rockets were fired with gun powder, known as solid fuel.) For centuries, scientists had realized that rockets were the only way to reach distant space. Among the important modern theorists was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935; see entry), a Russian teacher who promoted spaceflight and wrote books on the subject. Goddard was the first to succeed in firing a rocket a significant distance, however, and his research produced a technological revolution. By the end of his life he held more than two hundred patents for such inventions as turbo-fed rockets powered by gas generators, automatic rocket launching and guidance controls, and optical-telescope tracking methods.

At the end of World War II...