On this day in 1931, Robert H. Goddard was granted a patent for “propulsion of aircraft.”
On this day in 1931, Robert H. Goddard was granted a patent for “propulsion of aircraft.” According to NASA, the invention basically used a rocket to create thrust for an aircraft. The patent certainly contributed to Goddard’s pioneering work in rocketry, but for a while, he faced an army of skeptics. The commander of that army seemed to be the New York Times. When Goddard first began experimenting with rockets, an editorial page feature published in 1920 shot him down: “That Professor Goddard with his ‘chair’ in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of the action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd. Of course, he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.” The Times denounced Goddard and the possibility of space travel in one swoop. However, the newspaper famously retracted the article on July 17, 1969, the night befor...