Goddard did receive a long-overdue public vindication the day after Apollo 11 sailed into space. Under the headline A CORRECTION, the New York Times ran a three-paragraph editorial that owned up to its January 1920 comments mocking Goddard’s intellect and belief that a rocket could reach the moon. The paper amended its earlier criticisms and humbly concluded: “It is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.”
