Famous inventors
Robert H. Goddard
The first liquid-fuel rocket was built by American scientist and inventor Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882–1945) in 1926. Besides the liquid-fuel rocket, he also invented the multi-stage rocket; both technologies were originally designed in 1914). These two inventions were to prove vital steps in the history of space flight. When in 1920, Goddard outlined a scientific proposal for how an unmanned rocket could reach the Moon, he was ridiculed. He is now considered the father of modern rocketry.
The first rocket
Goddard constructed and successfully tested the first rocket using liquid fuel on 16th March 16 1926, at Auburn, Massachusetts. Using gasoline and liquid oxygen for fuel, the small rocket, nicknamed "Nell", reached a height of 12.5 metres (41 feet) and landed 56 metres (184 feet) away. His later rockets reached heights of up to 2.16 kilometres (1.6 miles), travelling at speeds of up to 885 km/h (550 mph). One carried the first "payload": a barometer and a camera.
In this picture of Goddard standing by his rocket, the scientist is grasping the support structure. The rocket's combustion chamber is the small cylinder at the top. It has a nozzle fixed to it. The fuel tank, which was also part of the rocket, is nearer the ground, opposite Goddard himself.
Consultant: Dave Hawksett