The flight was not impressive by any measure of the time. Nell barely cleared the trees before crashing into ice and snow. Goddard himself was mocked by the New York Times, which famously editorialised that rockets could not work in the vacuum of space because there was nothing to push against. The paper did not issue a correction until 1969, the day after Apollo 11 launched.

But that modest flight proved the fundamental principle: liquid-fueled rockets could work. Within three decades, objects were riding liquid-fueled rockets into orbit. Within four decades, humans walked on the Moon. Within a century, reusable rockets are landing themselves on drone ships and private companies are building vehicles to reach Mars.

Goddard spent most of his career working in relative obscurity, largely self-funded and operating from farms and ranches in Massachusetts and New Mexico. He filed 214 patents on rocketry concepts, many of which were later independently developed by German and American rocket programs.

The centennial is being marked by space journalists and historians reflecting on their favourite rockets and the extraordinary acceleration of capability from a 41-foot hop to orbital-class vehicles in a single century.