“Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it.”

- Robert H. Goddard

Newton’s 3rd Law: “For every action force there is an equal and opposite reaction force.”

Hero’s steam engine About 300 BC

Chinese alchemists invent gunpowder invented by 9th century

Surface-running rocket-powered torpedo for setting enemy ships on fire. - Joanes de Fontana, Italy

• 1898 - Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposes rocket space exploration.

• New York Times, 1921

“[Prof. Goddard] does not know the relation of action and reaction; [rockets] need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”

V-2 Rocket

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjFTN-YdK_M

• 1969, Apollo astronauts’ first lunar landing. “The Times regrets the error.”