Modern spaceflight rests on a deceptively simple idea: a machine that carries its own fuel and oxidizer, then hurls exhaust backward fast enough to push itself forward. The person who first turned ...

The history of the rocket stretches back far longer than most people realize. Long before spaceflight, early civilizations experimented with gunpowder‑powered projectiles, discovering—sometimes ...

In 1959, NASA posthumously named the Goddard Space Flight Center in honor of Robert Goddard's lifetime of work in rocketry, physics, and space travel. But his journey from a youth spent reading ...