March 16 is momentous for rocket science as it was on this day a century ago that the first liquid-fuelled rocket took flight. Back in 1926, Robert Goddard was a relenting scientist who was laying the groundwork for the many accomplishments humans made in space.
On a cold morning of March 16, 1926, Goddard, his wife Esther and two of his colleagues visited a farm a few miles south in Auburn, Massachusetts with probably his greatest creation – Nell. It was a rocket fitted with liquid propulsion system and stood no taller than 11 feet and just 4.5 kg.
A 2.5-second rocket flight that heralded decades of discovery in space!
Today marks 100 years since the first successful test of a liquid-fueled rocket. Robert H. Goddard’s achievement would have appeared unimpressive by most measures: His rocket flew just 41 feet in the air,… pic.twitter.com/B30j2wmv7T
— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) March 16, 2026
Working up a blend of gasoline and liquid oxygen, Goddard had prepared the rocket for takeoff after years of careful construction, testing and hard work. And take off it did.
Nell climbed 41 feet high in the air and landed in a cabbage patch 60 yards away. While the entire flight only lasted about three seconds, it opened the door for application for decades to come.
Goddard, who was a professor at Clark University in Massachussetts, remembered the flight in his journal – “It looked almost magical as it rose, without any appreciably greater noise or flame, as if it said, ‘I’ve been here long enough; I think I’ll be going somewhere else, if you don’t mind.” Over the years, he kept refining his rockets and made liquid-propulsion the backbone of spaceflight.
Liquid engines are better than solid ones as they allow throttle control, can be restarted in space after being shutdown and deliver higher performance for high-stakes missions.
According to NASA, which has named a facility after the scientist, Goddard was subjected to ridicule by the press for suggesting this technology could one day take humanity to the Moon. “Of course [Goddard] only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools,” the New York Times had reportedly written at the time.
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The newspaper couldn’t have been more wrong as Goddard’s innovation eventually allowed humanity to leave the solar system via the Voyager probes which were sent into deep space by liquid-fuelled rockets. This technology is why NASA today has rovers on Mars, why 12 men walked on the Moon and why spacecraft have been able to spy the outer solar system planets.
And it doesn’t just stop here. NASA’s Artemis II crewed Moon mission which is due to launch on April 1 will fly atop the SLS rocket and so will follow-up missions – all powered by liquid fuelled engines.
In 1959, NASA honoured this innovator by naming its first new complex the Goddard Space Flight Center and a decade later, astronaut Buzz Aldrin carried a miniature Goddard biography to the Moon on the Apollo 11 mission.
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