100 Years Ago, a Rocket Flew for 2.5 Seconds — and Changed Everything

The crowd that gathered in Esther Goddard’s photograph that March morning in 1926 could have fit in a living room. There was Robert, her husband. A few colleagues from Clark University. An open field in Auburn, Massachusetts, still cold enough that their breath hung in the air.

The contraption in front of them looked less like a rocket and more like a plumber’s fever dream — metal tubes, a frame that resembled scaffolding, and a tank of liquid oxygen venting frost. Robert Goddard had spent years on this. He had endured newspaper editorials that mocked his ideas. The New York Times had run a piece suggesting he didn’t understand basic physics — that rockets couldn’t work in a vacuum because there would be “nothing to push against.” The public called him “Moon Man.” It wasn’t a compliment.

By any reasonable measure, it was a failure. By another measure — the one that mattered — it was proof that something could work.

The Numbers That Don’t Impress Anyone

Two and a half seconds. Forty-one feet. A cabbage patch landing.

Those numbers wouldn’t get anyone’s attention at a dinner party. They wouldn’t attract investors. They certainly wouldn’t silence critics. And yet, those numbers represented something no human being had ever accomplished: a liquid-fueled rocket that actually flew under its own power.

By the time he died in 1945, Goddard held 214 patents. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center bears his name. The New York Times issued a formal correction to their editorial — in 1969, the day after Apollo 11 launched for the moon. It took 49 years, but the record was set straight.

What a Cabbage Patch Has to Do with Your Retirement

Almost every financial journey starts with numbers that feel embarrassing.

Your first 401(k) contribution might be $50 a paycheck. Your first brokerage account might hold $500. Compared to the retirement balances you see quoted in articles — the ones that talk about needing $1.5 million by age 65 — your starting point can feel laughable. Like a rocket that flies for 2.5 seconds and lands in vegetables.

A 25-year-old who invests $200 a month — assuming a hypothetical 7% average annual return — could accumulate over $525,000 by age 65. Not because $200 is a large sum — it isn’t — but because 40 years of compounding turns modest contributions into something substantial. The early years don’t look impressive. They’re not supposed to.

The Critics Never Go Away

Goddard faced skeptics his entire career. Even after his 1926 flight proved the concept, funding remained scarce. The U.S. military showed little interest. The press continued to treat him as an eccentric dreamer. He moved to New Mexico to continue his work in relative obscurity, supported by a grant from the Guggenheim family.

Financial progress often follows a similar pattern. You start contributing to a retirement account, and someone asks why you’re bothering with such small amounts. You skip a purchase to stay on budget, and someone suggests you’re being too cautious. You hold your investments through a downturn, and someone tells you you’re missing the opportunity to time the market.

Proof of Concept

Goddard didn’t launch his rocket to reach the moon. He launched it to prove that liquid-fueled propulsion was possible. Once proven, the concept could be improved, scaled, refined. The 2.5-second flight wasn’t the end — it was the beginning of a process.

The balance you see at the end of year one doesn’t matter much. Neither did Goddard’s first flight, in isolation. What matters is that you did it — and now you can keep going.

One Hundred Years Later

On March 16, 2026, it will be exactly 100 years since that rocket left the ground in Auburn, Massachusetts. The cabbage patch is long gone. So is the skepticism — at least about rockets.

If you’re early in your financial journey, and the numbers feel too small to matter, consider what Goddard might say. He spent decades working on an idea that most people dismissed. He saw more failures than successes. And he never witnessed the ultimate validation of his work.

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Written and shared by Anthony S. Owens, on behalf of the team at McKee Financial Resources, Wealth Management Services.