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Unlike Elon Musk, America’s First Genius Rocket Scientist Was Ridiculed and Neglected
It was a big mistake for the development of America’s missile defense and space programs.
It is an ironic consistency of society in general and a stinging commentary on American society in particular. The lone genius pursuing his worthy idea belabored as a fool by his contemporaries. Especially if the idea is esoteric and not making any money. A man before his time, Robert Hutchings Goddard was building rockets when the preferred mode of transportation was a horse and trains were steam powered. He dreamed of going into space when Wernher von Braun wasn’t even a twinkle in Magnus von Braun’s (his father’s) eye.
H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds had been out two years when Goddard read the book. He had an epiphany while climbing a cherry tree that he would come up with some device that might take men to Mars. Seventeen year old Robert Goddard came down from that tree a changed person on a mission.
Interested in technology from an early age, Robert Goddard was a sickly child. He stayed home from school and read a lot, particularly science type stuff which, apparently, included science fiction. He was the nerdy kid who tried to blow the house up. Instead of remonstrations his dad encouraged him…
