Snow blanketed the launch pad, and the rocketeers sipped hot malted milk to ward off the chill. But the launch they conducted a century ago today turned the idea of space travel from fantasy to possibility – and provided the first small step toward the Moon.

The rocket was designed by Robert Goddard, a physics professor at Clark University in Massachusetts. Goddard was brilliant but secretive. He refused to collaborate with other scientists, and seldom even talked about his research. Instead, he

At the time he started, all rockets were powered by solid fuels, such as gunpowder. But solid fuels are inefficient and hard to control. So Goddard built a rocket powered by liquid fuels – gasoline and liquid oxygen. It was a potent mixture that provided far more energy per pound than solids.

Goddard and his wife and assistants launched the first liquid-fueled rocket in history on March 16th, 1926. It was airborne for just two and a half seconds, and climbed just 41 feet. But it proved that liquid fuels could propel a rocket skyward.

Goddard spent two more decades experimenting with rockets. German engineers used many of his innovations in the V-2, which bombarded England during World War II. Transplanted to the United States after the war, many of these engineers developed the rockets that boosted satellites into space – and sent astronauts to the Moon.

Script by Damond Benningfield