On March 16, 1926, a physics professor named Robert Goddard stood in a snowy cabbage field in Auburn, Massachusetts. He was about to test something nobody had ever built before: a rocket powered by liquid fuel. Earlier rockets used solid fuel, like a firework. Goddard believed liquid fuel would be more powerful and easier to control. His rocket was small, about the size of a person. His assistant lit the engine. The rocket roared, lifted off, and flew for about 2.5 seconds. It reached a height of 41 feet and landed 184 feet away in the field. It was not impressive by today's standards. But it was the first time in history that a liquid-fueled rocket had flown. Newspapers mocked Goddard. One famous article said he did not understand basic physics. Goddard was embarrassed and moved his experiments to the desert in New Mexico, where he could work in privacy. He kept building bigger rockets. Some reached altitudes of over a mile. He invented systems for steering rockets in flight that are still used today. When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in 1969, they used liquid-fueled rockets based on Goddard's original idea.