Modern rocketry turns 100—and NASA says the best is yet to come

March 18, 2026

6 min read

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Modern rocketry turns 100—and NASA says the best is yet to come

A century after Robert Goddard’s first-ever launch of a liquid-fueled rocket, two NASA experts weigh in on what his legacy still holds for spaceflight’s future

By Lee Billings edited by Claire Cameron

A photograph of Robert Goddard drawing a diagram of the Earth and moon on a blackboard at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

Bettmann/Getty Images

We are in the space age. Rockets launch to space almost every day. Orbital space stations have now housed humans continuously for decades. The sky is swarming with satellites and space telescopes. Humans have been to the moon—and are going back. And robots are scattered across the solar system and puttering around on the surface of Mars.

All of this incredible innovation owes a debt to a modest experiment that took place 100 years ago: On March 16, 1926, American physicist and engineer (and occasional Scientific American contributor) Robert H. Goddard launched an 11-foot-tall, 10-pound rocket prototype nicknamed “Nell” from a cabbage patch in Auburn, Mass. Nell was airborne for just a few seconds, but its flight was a milestone—the first-ever liftoff of a liquid-fueled rocket.

Before that moment among the cabbages, solid fuel was used in all previous rockets, dating all the way back to the gunpowder-filled “fire arrows” that were employed to fight invading Mongols in 13th-century China. Liquid fuels imbued rockets with a more powerful thrust and, thanks to their variable flow, also offered more control—precisely what would be needed for any serious attempt at spaceflight. Other early visionaries—Russia’s Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Germany’s Hermann Oberth—had also realized the transformative potential of liquid-fueled rockets, but Goddard was the first to prove it.

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The rest, as they say, is history. To commemorate the centenary of Goddard’s flight and understand what the future holds for rocketry, Scientific American spoke with two NASA experts—Kurt Polzin, chief engineer of the Space Nuclear Propulsion Project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and David Manzella, senior technologist for in-space propulsion at NASA’s Glenn Research Center.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

Given how modest Goddard’s “Nell” prototype was compared with today’s rockets, do you think it’s really accurate to say Nell’s flight a century ago marks the beginning of “modern rocketry?”

KURT POLZIN: Robert Goddard was a pioneering figure who moved rocketry beyond its early roots in solid propellant systems, such as gunpowder-packed canisters. His scientific and analytical approach established a framework for systematically engineering and improving rocket components, a methodology still followed today.

Goddard’s milestone flight laid the groundwork for the development of various space propulsion systems, including chemical rockets, nuclear-thermal rockets, and both solar- and nuclear-electric propulsion. Despite their differences, these systems share a common principle: converting a source of energy—whether chemical bonds, nuclear reactions or solar power—into a high-velocity stream of gas or particles that produces thrust.

Notably, Goddard’s insight extended to electric propulsion. In his notes, he recognized the potential of accelerating charged particles, such as electrons, for propulsion—a concept that anticipated the ion thrusters now used in modern spacecraft.

Space launches are now so commonplace that they’re scarcely seen as newsworthy. One might have the impression that we’ve reached the limit of what Goddard-inspired chemical rockets can do. What do you see as the remaining frontiers?

POLZIN: Chemical rockets, often associated with Goddard’s pioneering work but now encompassing a century of collective innovation, have been the backbone of space exploration. Traditional propellant combinations such as liquid oxygen–liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen–kerosene and various solid rocket motor propellants have been extensively refined. Recent developments from “new space” companies have introduced alternatives such as methane and hybrid propellants, which could offer further advantages in reliability, cost and operational flexibility.

Innovative approaches such as propulsive boost-stage landings (used by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rockets, for instance) have reduced launch costs and increased launch frequenc