First modern rocket launched 100 years ago, beginning century of both innovations & challenges for spaceflight

MIAMI (US): (Mar 17) Apollo 11 first landed astronauts on the Moon in 1969, but the journey to the lunar surface actually began 43 years before, in snowy Massachusetts.

Exactly 100 years ago, on March 16, 1926, Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket. Liquid-fueled rockets would eventually provide the power to send humans to the Moon.

Still, Goddard’s vehicle was small, flew for only 42 seconds, reached a height of a mere 184 feet and sustained damage that created more doubters than believers in the prospects for human space flight.