The year was 1919.

And the New York Times posted an editorial
by an editor [who lacked scientific knowledge]
ridiculing Goddard for his [then] modest MIT science
paper on high-altitude rocketry; because in Goddard's
science paper Robert 'dared' make the assumption
that ultimately it was possible for a multistaged rocket
to send a SMALL magnesium-powder & oxidizer-filled payload
crashing onto the nightside of the moon where the
magnesium-powder & oxidizer would 'flash' briefly, but
brilliantly enough for a large telescope to detect it.

Alas, Dr. Goddard was ridiculed by the public as a result,
who called him the "moon man"
Dr. Goddard almost became a science hermit as result,
with only his wife, a few friends, and a few workers
to help him carry on his work away from the public near Roswell, NM.

Sadly, one golden opportunity passed by Robert Goddard.
One of his few friends, Charles Lindbergh, who helped get
him rocket funding in 1929, was drawn away from Mr. Goddard
by the tragic kidnapping affecting Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh
in the early 1930's.

Otherwise?...It's possible that Mr. Lindbergh could have
seen the logical connection between Mr. Goddard's
primitive rocket motors and the possibility of new aviation
records [in speed and altitude] by financially encouraging
Mr. Goddard to develop a streamlined rocketplane that could
have been a forerunner of the supersonic X-1 of Chuck Yeager,
but 10 years earlier.