In 1920, The New York Times mocked an American physics professor for claiming a rocket could function in the vacuum of space, insisting he lacked basic high school knowledge. Forty-nine years later, as the Apollo 11 astronauts hurtled toward the moon, the paper finally printed a retraction.

This episode of pplpod dives deep into the incredible, often overlooked life of Robert H. Goddard, the visionary inventor widely regarded as the father of modern rocketry. From a profound childhood dream sparked while climbing a cherry tree in 1899, to successfully launching the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket from a snowy Massachusetts cabbage field in 1926, Goddard’s pioneering genius single-handedly ushered in the Space Age.

But his journey was anyth ...