That Professor Goddard, with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react --- to say that would be absurd. Of course, he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
It took until 1969 for them to issue a retraction.
some just faster than others.... ;-)