the acient greeks had ideas for rockets
The earliest rockets can be traced back to the society of the Ancient Greeks. ... Hero of Alexandria, a few centuries later, also utilized steam propulsion in a manner reminiscent of today's rockets. His device, known as the aeolipile, consisted of a hollow sphere that was connected by pipes to an open kettle of water.
Equations, equations, those are most important.
British mathematician William Moore first derived the rocket equation in 1810, and published in 1813.
The minister William Leitch, who was a capable scientist, also independently derived the fundamentals of rocketry in 1861.
The equation is named after Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky who independently derived it and published it in his 1903 work. He got the credit because he was first to apply it to seeing if space travel was theoretically possible.
Robert Goddard (ah, there he is) in America independently developed the equation in 1912 when he began his research to improve rocket engines for possible space flight.
Hermann Oberth (remember the Oberth effect?) in Europe independently derived the equation about 1920 as he studied the feasibility of space travel.