Was there really a "rockets can't work in space" myth?

[sniffnoy]

I posted this on /r/AskHistorians over on Reddit but got no responses. I expect I'll get less of one here, but, may as well ask

Comments

[joshuazelinsky]

As far as I'm aware, the NYT article is the most prominent example of this misconception. I will note that while I don't know how many other people historically had this misconception, you can find many videos on Youtube of people making exactly the NYT's argument or something very similar. Some of them are flat-Earthers while others are just generic conspiracy theorists. A while ago I encountered someone who both thought that rockets couldn't work in space and that the government was covering up alien visitors. I didn't at the time pay close attention to how they reconciled these apparently contradictory views (maybe the aliens use some sort of warp drive?).

[sniffnoy]

Huh, interesting...