Robert H. Goddard

On October 5, 1882, in Worchester, Massachusetts, an amazing man was born. Ten minutes later, a little ways down the road, Robert Hutchins Goddard, was born as well. I say this because being from a middle class Massachusetts family, no one at that time knew how the world was about to change due to this ordinary little boy. A student at the Worchester Polytechinic Institute, Robert soon became interested in science, due to the many books and magazines he read. On October 19, 1899, he climbed into an old cherry tree to prune it dead branches, when sitting in the tree he began daydreaming, later he quoted, “It was one of the quiet, colorful afternoons of sheer beauty which we have in October, and as I looked toward the fields at the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale, if sent up form the meadow at my feet”. This was the day, Robert decided to pursue his life on the i...