![New York Times and Robert H. Goddard
The article pressed further on Goddard’s proposal to launch rockets beyond the atmosphere:
[A]fter the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey it will neither be accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that.
Finally, the Times pounced. It assumed, wrongly, that Goddard’s understanding of Newton’s laws was flawed:[68]
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.[68]
Unbeknownst to the Times, thrust is possible in a vacuum.[69]
[…]
Forty-nine years after its editorial mocking Goddard, on July 17, 1969 — the day after the launch of Apollo 11 — The New York Times published a short item under the headline “A Correction.” The three-paragraph statement summarized its 1920 editorial, and concluded: 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.[73]
Forty-nine years after its editorial mocking Goddard, on July 17, 1969 — the day after the launch of Apollo 11 — The New York Times published a short item under the headline “A Correction.” The three-paragraph statement summarized its 1920 editorial, and concluded:
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.[73]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_looxnkvLJI1qb9h8yo1_400.jpg)
New York Times and Robert H. Goddard
The article pressed further on Goddard’s proposal to launch rockets beyond the atmosphere:
[A]fter the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey it will neither be accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that.
Finally, the Times pounced. It assumed, wrongly, that Goddard’s understanding of Newton’s laws was flawed:[68]
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.[68]
Unbeknownst to the Times, thrust is possible in a vacuum.[69]
[…]
Forty-nine years after its editorial mocking Goddard, on July 17, 1969 — the day after the launch of Apollo 11 — The New York Times published a short item under the headline “A Correction.” The three-paragraph statement summarized its 1920 editorial, and concluded:
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.[73]
Forty-nine years after its editorial mocking Goddard, on July 17, 1969 — the day after the launch of Apollo 11 — The New York Times published a short item under the headline “A Correction.” The three-paragraph statement summarized its 1920 editorial, and concluded:
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.[73]
