Robert H. Goddard

Hello. My name is Robert Goddard, and I have a story to tell you about reaching for the stars. I was born on October 5th, 1882. Even when I was a little boy, I loved to look up at the big, dark sky and dream about what was out there. I read exciting books by an author named H.G. Wells, who wrote stories about traveling to other planets. His words made my imagination soar. One special day, on October 19th, 1899, I climbed up into a tall cherry tree in my backyard. As I looked out at the world from up high, a huge idea popped into my head. I imagined building a special machine, one that could fly all the way to Mars. That dream in the cherry tree was the start of everything for me.

When I grew up, I became a scientist so I could turn my dreams into real things. I had a brand new idea that no one had ever tried before. I thought that if I used liquid fuel, I could make a rocket fly much higher and faster. Other people at the time used a different kind of fuel, and some even laughed at my new idea, saying it would never work. But I believed in my dream. I worked very hard in my workshop, and finally, a very exciting day arrived. On March 16th, 1926, I was ready to test my creation. I launched my very first liquid-fueled rocket. I even gave it a nickname, 'Nell.' It only flew for a couple of seconds, but it worked. It proved that my idea was possible, and I knew I couldn't give up.

My rockets started getting bigger and more powerful. I needed a much bigger and safer place to test them, somewhere with lots of empty space. So, around the year 1930, I moved my workshop all the way to the wide-open desert of Roswell, New Mexico. There was nothing but sand and sky for miles. In the desert, I could build even bigger and better rockets. It was very hard work. Sometimes my rockets would tip over, and sometimes they wouldn't fly very high. Not every single experiment was a success, but I never saw it as a failure. I knew that I could learn something important from every single try. Each time a rocket didn't work perfectly, it taught me how to make the next one even better. I just kept trying, again and again.

I lived to be 62 years old. In my lifetime, I never got to see one of my rockets fly all the way to the Moon. But that's okay. My inventions and all my hard work were like the very first steps on a long path to the stars. I showed other scientists that it was possible to build powerful rockets. My ideas helped make the entire space age possible, leading to the amazing rockets that would one day take people into space. I hope you remember that even the biggest journey starts with a small idea, just like mine did in that cherry tree. So always hold on to your dreams.