Modern rocketry turns 100—and NASA says the best is yet to come

Eleven feet tall and weighing just 10 pounds, a rocket nicknamed "Nell" lifted off from a Massachusetts cabbage patch for a few brief seconds on March 16, 1926, becoming the first liquid-fueled rocket ever to fly.

That modest flight by physicist Robert Goddard launched the space age we know today. While solid-fuel rockets had existed since 13th-century China's gunpowder "fire arrows," liquid fuel offered the powerful, controllable thrust needed for serious spaceflight.

Now, 100 years later, NASA engineers are pushing beyond Goddard's legacy toward revolutionary propulsion systems. Kurt Polzin from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center notes that while chemical rockets remain essential for reaching orbit, the future lies in nuclear-powered systems and electric propulsion that could push spacecraft to Mars using a fraction of today's fuel requirements.

David Manzella from NASA's Glenn Research Center is developing systems where nuclear power could generate orders of magnitude more electricity than solar arrays. As he puts it, "We are indeed entering a new age in the history of humankind where each and every one of us could be impacted by space-based systems daily."