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launch sequence

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Rocket launches may seem
commonplace today.

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In 2018 there was an average of

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more than three launches every
week.

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But In the past, the idea of

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sending rockets into space was
purely science fiction.

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It wasn’t until the early 20th
century, 

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when a man named Robert
Goddard tried to 

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convince the world that space
travel

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didn’t have to be fiction.

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Decades before the Space Age
began, 

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he envisioned using rockets to
send science experiments 

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into the upper atmosphere,
beyond the heights 

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attainable by weather balloons
at the time. 

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He even imagined,

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and calculated in detail,

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what it would take to send a
rocket carrying 

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a mass of flash powder to the
surface of the Moon. 

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The powder, he
believed, 

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could be ignited on the surface
and

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would be visible from Earth.

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The public caught wind of
Goddard’s wild ideas 

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and he became the topic of

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national conversation and
press.

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A lot of it negative.

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Goddard’s reply: 

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Goddard persisted with his
dream.

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He went on to build and launch

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the world’s first
liquid-fueled rocket,

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the basic design of which is
still used to this day.

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In July 1969, 50 years after
Goddard first proposed 

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sending a rocket to the Moon, 

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Apollo 11 launched on the
six-and-a-half-million-pound
Saturn V rocket. 

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Among the three astronauts
onboard was Buzz Aldrin. 

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And on his journey to the
Moon, he carried with him 

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a miniature version of Robert 
Goddard’s autobiography.

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Thankfully, Goddard was not
forgotten by history. 

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His name lives on to this day.

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On May 1, 1959, NASA dedicated its 

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first spaceflight complex in
his honor as the 

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Goddard Space Flight Center.

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Sixty years later, the center
continues to 

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fulfill his vision by building
spacecraft, instruments and

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new technology to study Earth,
the Sun, 

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our solar system and the
universe.