100 years later, where is Robert Goddard’s first liquid-fueled rocket?

Robert Goddard (at left) and Henry Sachs, Percy Roope, and Esther Goddard with parts from the first liquid-fueled rocket after its history-making flight in Auburn, Massachusetts, March 16, 1926. Credit: Robert Goddard/Clark University/collectSPACE.com

It flew for only two seconds, but its impact is still felt a century later.

Robert Goddard’s first liquid-fueled rocket, which lifted off from a snowy field on March 16, 1926, has been written about extensively. Earlier solid-fueled rockets existed, but liquid-fueled rockets promised the sustainability and control needed to send spacecraft and humans into Earth orbit and beyond.

“The rocket’s reach was short, but it marked the moment that humanity entered a new era,” said Kevin Schindler, author of “Robert Goddard’s Massachusetts,” speaking at the site of that first launch as part of a centennial commemoration held Saturday in Auburn (March 14). “It proved that liquid fuel could lift a ...