Well, not to rain on your parade, but Robert Goddard (1882 - 1845) came AFTER the Russian Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857 - 1935) and in parallel with the Romanian-German Hermann Oberth (1894-1989) (who taught Wernher von Braun).
It would also be useful to note that the Soviet (Russian) Energyia boosters are still extremely useful for high payloads, (they hold the record) and that the previous Ariane rockets were the bread and butter of all European probes, and were bought by Japan as well...
One explosion does not mean that the rocket is a failure... think of Challenger...
My father worked in France at CNES (Centre National des Etudes Spatiaux - National Centre for Space Studies) and was very impressed with what he saw - he said it rivals the best American installations. Considering that he is among the most respected European specialists in GPS, teledetection and spatial projections, I belive him... and the European Space Agency remains one of the big players in my book.