New York Times mocked Robert Goddard, inventor of the liquid-fueled rocket, in 1920

[Jon]

Looks like they had "fake news" in the 1920s too.

Robert H. Goddard was the inventor of the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, launched in 1926, and was eventually recognized as the father of modern rocketry. Here's Goddard in March of 1926, with his first liquid-fueled rocket.



Despite having three degrees in physics, and ultimately being recognized as the father of modern rocketry, in Goddard's time he was repeatedly ridiculed by the press as a "moon man", with ideas that the media claimed violated basic scientific principles. Most notably, on January 13, 1920, the New York Times published an editorial mocking Goddard for claiming that a rocket could function in a vacuum:

That Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action and reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.

Not to worry though, the New York Times published a correction. The Times corrected itself a mere 49 years later, the day after the Apollo 11 spaceflight during which Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. Here it is: The Times regrets its error.

JULY 17, 1969: On Jan. 13, 1920, Topics of The Times, an editorial-page feature of The New York Times, dismissed the notion that a rocket could function in a vacuum and commented on the ideas of Robert H. Goddard, the rocket pioneer, as follows: ''That Professor Goddard, with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react -- to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.''

Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.

Original New York Times article from 1920 is below: