How many Robert Goddards do you think are being stifled today?

[ck4829]

Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945) was an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, which was successfully launched on March 16, 1926. By 1915 his pioneering work had dramatically improved the efficiency of the solid-fueled rocket, signaling the era of the modern rocket and innovation. He and his team launched 34 rockets between 1926 and 1941, achieving altitudes as high as 2.6 km (1.6 mi) and speeds as fast as 885 km/h (550 mph).

Goddard's work as both theorist and engineer anticipated many of the developments that would make spaceflight possible. He has been called the man who ushered in the Space Age. Two of Goddard's 214 patented inventions, a multi-stage rocket (1914), and a liquid-fuel rocket (1914), were important milestones toward spaceflight. His 1919 monograph A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes is considered one of the classic texts of 20th-century rocket science. Goddard successfully pioneered modern methods such as two-axis control (gyroscopes and steerable thrust) to allow rockets to control their flight effectively.

Although his work in the field was revolutionary, Goddard received little public or financial support for his research and development work. He was a shy person, and rocket research was not considered a suitable pursuit for a physics professor. The press and other scientists ridiculed his theories of spaceflight. As a result, he became protective of his privacy and his work.

The New York Times editorial division thought Goddard's work was ridiculous and had this to put out about A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes:

After the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey, its flight would be neither 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. ... Of course, (Goddard) only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard

Oh another fun fact, the "only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that" referred to Einstein disputing the notion that space was full of a mysterious substance called luminiferous aether, which was believed that it "just had to exist" for no reason... take that as you will.

- The New York Times’ 1920 Editorial Mocking Space Travel Remains a Classic

We live in a society where the median voter believes Facebook memes are a trusted source for news and people think we have the greatest healthcare system in the world simply because we spend so much on it. So, there are still so many people like the NYT editorial author or authors still with us even today.

So we have to ask ourselves... how many people like Robert H. Goddard are getting their dreams dashed today?