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Robert Goddard is the first man who built a rocket and is now called "the father of modern rocketry" By contrast to Ziolkovsky, Goddard was the man who designed, built, and flew the rockets. He was a university professor who also developed the theory of rocketry and although he didn\'t know about Ziolkovsky\'s work, reached the same conclusions as Ziolkovsky did. Goddard proved the theory was true. He was also heavily influenced by the science fiction of Jules Verne, and he worked hard to develop rockets because he wanted to see them take us into space. When he first published his superbly written study, proposing that rockets could possibly be used to travel to the moon, people thought he was a nut. In fact, the criticism was so harsh, Goddard maintained a low profile and said little about his work after that.
In 1926 he launched the world's first liquid fuelled rocket. In the course of his experiments in Massachusetts and Roswell, New Mexico, he virtually developed the entirety of rocket technology. He invented everything required for modern rocketry and earned over 200 patents. By himself he developed the same components and designs that took the Germans hundreds of scientists and engineers and millions of dollars to develop independently at Peenemunde during World War II.
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