The History of Rocketry is very complex and involves the work on many countries programs and individuals. The United States and Russia have always been very competitive since the second would war. This competitive attitude did amazing things for the two counties space programs. Since the early days of the space race to now several other countries have jump onto the program and become more interest in space. The European Space Agency, China, and Japan are currently the other major countries involved in space development.
While the money of countries fund these programs it is really the work of the people that accomplish these amazing tasks. Without the hard work of thousands of people the space programs we have today would not be where they are. The development of the first solid rockets to the liquid fueled rockets that are commonly used now are all development based from the small scale works of a few people.