Here's a little on the subject of early rocksts:
http://yarchive.net/space/rocket/primitive_rockets.html
I'd say that some sort of rocket program, given enough resources, could have yielded some solid results by the WWI era, but it would have been terribly expensive: you need a big incentive. (Hmm. Alien Van Neumann machine, meant for a macroengineering project somewhere near Spica, goes off course and crashes on the moon in 1830. Damaged in the process, it still tries to complete it's program as far as resources will allow. Before it breaks down half a century later, it (and it's robotic spawn) build a half-assed industrial complex approximately the size of France on the earth-facing side of the moon...In other words, ASB)
Bruce
http://yarchive.net/space/rocket/primitive_rockets.html
I'd say that some sort of rocket program, given enough resources, could have yielded some solid results by the WWI era, but it would have been terribly expensive: you need a big incentive. (Hmm. Alien Van Neumann machine, meant for a macroengineering project somewhere near Spica, goes off course and crashes on the moon in 1830. Damaged in the process, it still tries to complete it's program as far as resources will allow. Before it breaks down half a century later, it (and it's robotic spawn) build a half-assed industrial complex approximately the size of France on the earth-facing side of the moon...In other words, ASB)
Bruce