MODERN ROCKET PROPULSION

Existing rockets up until that time used basically the same propellant the Chinese had invented over 1500 years earlier - solid fuel.

Tsiolkovsky and Goddard both independently recognized that if a rocket were going to do the things that they dreamed of, it would have to be powered by liquid fuel. The existing solid fuels of that time simply did not have sufficient power.

At the same time, in Germany, Hermann Oberth was working out the basic principals of spaceflight.
Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945), Hermann J. Oberth (1894-1989)
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