History of Rocketry & Space Travel, written by Wernher von Braun and Frederick I. Ordway III in 1966 (revised edition in 1969), included information about the German expatriates' work at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico following World War II. A brief excerpt:

The main body of Germans began arriving at Fort Bliss [Texas] in December 1945, and by February 1946 over a hundred were on hand. They were quartered in converted hospital buildings that gradually became more homelike.

The test facilities became more elaborate as the program picked up speed. The first static firing of a V-2 power plant in the United States took place on 14 March 1946, and soon afterward a series of test flights began. The first American-adapted V-2 was flown from the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, on 16 April 1946....

While the components of the missiles flown in 1946 were completely of German origin, increasing modifications were made from 1947 onward, primarily to accommodate larger and more complex payloads. By 1950 the V-2 rocket had been lengthened by 5 feet, increasing its payload capacity from 16 to 80 cubic feet.

The V-2 program, in addition to giving Americans experience in launching large vehicles, gave valuable information on every aspect of rocket flights and added considerably to information about the  upper atmosphere. A V-2 carrying atmospheric sounding gear and a biological payload reached an altitude of 116 miles on 17 December 1946. The highest altitude attained was achieved on 22 August 1952, when vehicle TF-1, with no scientific instrumentation, flew to 133 miles above the New Mexico desert. The longest V-2 flight in the United States, 111.1 miles, took place on 5 December 1946.

---
Planning for the advent of commercial spaceflight, a group of business people and community leaders formed the Southwest Regional Spaceport Taskforce in 1992. This was the foundation for what ultimately became Spaceport America. In 2005, the taskforce  produced a business plan for the proposed spaceport. The plan included the following:

Commercial space represents the latest stage in the millennia-old evolution of transportation systems. And, as in times past, governments will have to invest in the requisite infrastructure for the industry to thrive and economies to grow. History teaches us that those who judiciously invest are rewarded, while those that do not are typically left to languish.

In scrutinizing the various indicators of market segment attractiveness, numerous sources point to the space tourism industry. This is the only space activity that can support a high number of flights which is essential to bringing costs down. And if costs are reduced, there should be opportunities for taking advantage of other benefits from space, such as developing the solar electricity industry. NASA and the U.S. Space Transportation Association have published a report acknowledging that space tourism was likely to start soon and could grow into the largest activity in space. It is estimated that space tourism will generate at least $1 billion a year within 20 years.

Since Spaceport America opened in 2006, space tourism has continued to be a major objective. However, by 2021, operations at the spaceport had included more than 300 suborbital launches for education, rocket development, and equipment testing in a space environment.

---
The following excerpt is from Higher, Faster, Longer: My Life in Aviation and My Quest for Spaceflight, the memoir of Mercury 13 member Wally Funk. It is from an explanatory note about the selection of NASA's first astronauts.

President Dwight Eisenhower had decided that America's astronaut candidates would be drawn from the pool of military test pilots. This ensured that the candidates would be accustomed to dealing with emergencies under stressful conditions and would be familiar with the physical and psychological stresses of high-speed flight in unproven aircraft. Furthermore, they would already hold security clearances. Candidates had to be less than forty years old, less than five feet eleven inches tall, and have at least 1,500 hours of flying time, much of it in jet aircraft. The initial phase of the selection process identified 110 potential candidates.

A first round of screening produced thirty-two men who met the basic qualifications and were interested in participating. They were sent to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque [New Mexico] for physical examinations. They arrived in groups of six at a time, with each group being tested for seven and a half days. Only one of the thirty-two was disqualified for medical reasons....

The Mercury astronaut candidate physical examinations were extraordinarily thorough. The physical effects of spaceflight on humans were unknown;, so the examinations measured every conceivable physical characteristic. The data would also provide a set of baseline measurements for each astronaut that could be compared to post-spaceflight data in order to identify any physical effects caused by exposure to microgravity and cosmic radiation. By the time the next astronaut candidates were tested for the Gemini program in 1962, their greatly simplified physical exam took only one day.

---
This month's excerpt from American Moonshot by Douglas Brinkley highlights the mindset of Wernher von Braun, who defected to the United States at the end of World War II. He and his team developed the V-2 rocket, the first ballistic missile. They were sent to support America's rocket development at White Sands Proving Ground in southeast New Mexico.

Wernher von Braun had made his first public speech in America, to the El Paso Rotary Club [in January 1947]. "It seems to be a law of nature that all novel technical inventions that have a future for civilian use start out as weapons," he said, before going to predict a future where rocketry took its proper role of propelling satellites and space stations into orbit and enabling missions to the moon and beyond. Von Braun got a thundering ovation and was cheered by the support, but as usual, his ideas were ahead of their time. Before his space dreams could take flight, rocketry would enter new and even more dangerous territory with the postwar development of the first intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The only sensible thing for von Braun to do was, once again, to lie low and develop his ballistic missiles in Fort Bliss-White Sands for U.S. Army purposes while keeping a moon and Mars voyage as a long-term interior motive. In 1946, the Army Signal Corps succeeded in bouncing radio waves off the moon and received the reflected signals back on Earth. This was a stunning achievement, for it established that radio transmissions through space and back to Earth were possible. This public discovery didn't mean anything to [John F.] Kennedy, running for Congress. But to von Braun, it was proof that such signals could in the very near future be adapted to control manned and unmanned spacecraft alike.

---
In connection with Women's History Month, this excerpt from American Moonshot by Douglas Brinkley recognizes the Mercury 13, the first group of women to challenge NASA to consider the possibility of female astronauts. With the passing of Rhea Hurrle Woltman on February 15, 2021, only two of the Mercury 13 are still grounded on this Earth. They are Gene Nora Stumbough Jessen and Wally Funk.

While African Americans' struggle for civil rights was beginning to shake the pillars of Jim Crow, female pilots were struggling for equality in their fight against NASA's patriarchy. They did, however, have one offbeat ally in Dr. William "Randy" Lovelace II. An aeromedicine pioneer, Lovelace was chairman of the Special Advisory Committee on Life Science and from his office in New Mexico had conducted the intensive medical examinations that had helped winnow down the first class of likely astronauts to the final Mercury Seven. although holding what were then traditional views on women's roles in American society, Lovelace believed that women were better equipped physiologically for NASA space travel because they were, on average, shorter and smaller than men, needed less food and oxygen, and had better blood circulation and fewer cardiac problems.

After meeting American aviator Geraldyne "Jerrie" Cobb in 1959, Lovelace invited her to take the same tests as the Mercury astronauts---and was amazed at her aptitude.... Intrigued as to whether Cobb was an anomaly, Lovelace accepted a financial gift from the fabled pilot Jackie Cochran...to examine eighteen other seasoned female pilots at his New Mexico clinic for secret testing.... the top twelve, along with Jerrie Cobb, were [later] christened the "Mercury 13."...

[W]hen NASA leadership learned of the experiment, they made it abundantly clear that the agency wasn't going to employ women astronauts. The impetus for NASA's decision was [President John] Kennedy's May 25, 1961, moonshot announcement, and [NASA Administrator James] Webb's belief that all the agency's astronaut-training energy had to be targeted toward that lunar objective. In other words, it wasn't the time for a shift in gender....

Frustrated that NASA had flummoxed his Mercury 13 project, Lovelace kept fighting a rearguard action from his home in New Mexico, hoping for the inclusion of a woman astronaut on the Gemini roster. But in December 1965, he and his wife were killed in a plane crash, depriving the Mercury 13 of their most devoted advocate. It would be nearly twenty years before Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, lifting off aboard the Space Shuttle flight STS-7---the Challenger---on June 13, 1983.

---
Project Manhigh was based at the Aeromedical Field Laboratory at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the 1950s. A single-man gondola carried into the stratosphere was used to evaluate the ability to construct a life-supporting spacecraft and the ability of a human to survive spaceflight. Dr. David Simons piloted Manhigh II, the most successful of the three flights. The following excerpt is from The Pre-Astronauts: Manned Ballooning on the Threshold of Space by Craig Ryan. It is a continuation of last month's Voices.

But the sensation of glory and the satisfaction in a job well done were short-lived. Simons found himself increasingly annoyed with the fickle attentions of the press. they did not understand the real significance of what he had done, nor why he had done it. And because of their professional cynicism, they were incapable of really appreciating it. One of the reporters at the postflight press conference went sniffing for an angle: "Was it a spiritual experience?"

Simons measured his words and spoke as a scientist: "I have a deep regard for the steady, progressive march of mankind. I consider myself extremely fortunate to be able to move a step forward in the gradual pushing back of the frontier of progress. My spiritual experience here was tantamount to that of a biologist looking into a microscope and discovering a new virus."

The reporter challenged the response, accusing Simons of "humanism."

"To me," Simons said, "this is God: to contribute to the progress of mankind." ...

Simons was especially angered by the implication that the unstated goal of Project Manhigh from the beginning, had been to set an altitude record. He bristled at the suggestion that he was in it for personal glory. "I had a profound resentment toward people who thought the scientific part of it was an excuse," he would say. "I felt maligned."

---
Project Manhigh was based at the Aeromedical Field Laboratory at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the 1950s. A single-man gondola carried into the stratosphere was used to evaluate the ability to construct a life-supporting spacecraft and the ability of a human to survive spaceflight. Dr. David Simons piloted Manhigh II, the most successful of the three flights. The following excerpt is from The Pre-Astronauts: Manned Ballooning on the Threshold of Space by Craig Ryan:

On August 24, 1957, Lt. Gen. Samuel E. Anderson, commander of the Air Research and Devleopment Command (ARDC), pinned the Distinguished Flying Cross on David Simons in a ceremony in Baltimore. The citation referred to a "valor above and beyond the call of duty ... under conditions never before experienced." For a brief period following the flight the Manhigh crew were the darlings of the press. Simons was the "daring young Air Force officer" and "the gallant major." An op-ed piece in the New York Times titled "The First Space Man" suggested that Manhigh II's pilot had rised to the rarefied heights as a representative not of his branch of the service or his country, but of all mankind: he "made the trip for all of us. Organized society took this step toward space as it has taken others in the past and will take many more." ... Manhigh had proved, [Colonel John] Stapp announced, that human beings could live outside of Earth's atmosphere. And David simons had proved his mettle as an aeronaut: "He was sort of a one-man band," Stapp explained, "keeping alive with one hand, watching dials, conducting experiments, and snappling camers with the other. Dave could sit in a gondola, handle 20 emergencies, and not die at once."

---
Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh joined the Paperclip Scientists and the US Army's experiments with the German V-2 missiles at White Sands Proving Ground in 1946. He was tasked with developing instruments and methods to photograph and film the launches for evaluation. The following excerpt from Clyde Tombaugh: Discoverer of Planet Pluto by David H. Levy provides a glimpse of his important contributions to the program.

When Tombaugh arrived, the favored launch time was 11 a.m., a time of day when "seeing"---an effect involving the steadiness of the atmosphere---was at its worst. His pictures were criticized for being out of focus by those who could not recognize bad seeing, and Tombaugh's repeated suggestions for launch times early or late in the day went unheeded. "Turbulence? What's that?" Finally, early in December a V-2 countdown was delayed until late in the afternoon. When the launch finally took place, the sun was behind the cameras and low in the sky. Tombaugh's team got sharp pictures of the V-2 up to 110 miles. "We could see the shape of the missile!" ...

The tracking telescope had been considered kind of a joke and even ridiculed. From then on, it was respected. That day in December marked Tombaugh's coming of age at White Sands; he had used his optical skills to accomplish something unique.

The improvement in tracking was so great that from then on Tombaugh's suggested times for launches, early morning or late afternoon, were taken seriously and formulated in to launch windows. The pictures were taken back to Aberdeen Proving Ground, where officials were amazed that the small 5-inch camera, designed by James Edson, had produced such fine results.
New Mexico's
Space Voices Archives
New Mexico's Space Voices Archives
2021 Voices entries are archived here each month.

2021 Voices entries will be archived here each month.
History of Rocketry & Space Travel, written by Wernher von Braun and Frederick I. Ordway III in 1966 (revised edition in 1969), included information about the German expatriates' work at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico following World War II. A brief excerpt:

The main body of Germans began arriving at Fort Bliss [Texas] in December 1945, and by February 1946 over a hundred were on hand. They were quartered in converted hospital buildings that gradually became more homelike.

The test facilities became more elaborate as the program picked up speed. The first static firing of a V-2 power plant in the United States took place on 14 March 1946, and soon afterward a series of test flights began. The first American-adapted V-2 was flown from the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, on 16 April 1946....

While the components of the missiles flown in 1946 were completely of German origin, increasing modifications were made from 1947 onward, primarily to accommodate larger and more complex payloads. By 1950 the V-2 rocket had been lengthened by 5 feet, increasing its payload capacity from 16 to 80 cubic feet.

The V-2 program, in addition to giving Americans experience in launching large vehicles, gave valuable information on every aspect of rocket flights and added considerably to information about the  upper atmosphere. A V-2 carrying atmospheric sounding gear and a biological payload reached an altitude of 116 miles on 17 December 1946. The highest altitude attained was achieved on 22 August 1952, when vehicle TF-1, with no scientific instrumentation, flew to 133 miles above the New Mexico desert. The longest V-2 flight in the United States, 111.1 miles, took place on 5 December 1946.

---
Planning for the advent of commercial spaceflight, a group of business people and community leaders formed the Southwest Regional Spaceport Taskforce in 1992. This was the foundation for what ultimately became Spaceport America. In 2005, the taskforce  produced a business plan for the proposed spaceport. The plan included the following:

Commercial space represents the latest stage in the millennia-old evolution of transportation systems. And, as in times past, governments will have to invest in the requisite infrastructure for the industry to thrive and economies to grow. History teaches us that those who judiciously invest are rewarded, while those that do not are typically left to languish.

In scrutinizing the various indicators of market segment attractiveness, numerous sources point to the space tourism industry. This is the only space activity that can support a high number of flights which is essential to bringing costs down. And if costs are reduced, there should be opportunities for taking advantage of other benefits from space, such as developing the solar electricity industry. NASA and the U.S. Space Transportation Association have published a report acknowledging that space tourism was likely to start soon and could grow into the largest activity in space. It is estimated that space tourism will generate at least $1 billion a year within 20 years.

Since Spaceport America opened in 2006, space tourism has continued to be a major objective. However, by 2021, operations at the spaceport had included more than 300 suborbital launches for education, rocket development, and equipment testing in a space environment.

---
The following excerpt is from Higher, Faster, Longer: My Life in Aviation and My Quest for Spaceflight, the memoir of Mercury 13 member Wally Funk. It is from an explanatory note about the selection of NASA's first astronauts.

President Dwight Eisenhower had decided that America's astronaut candidates would be drawn from the pool of military test pilots. This ensured that the candidates would be accustomed to dealing with emergencies under stressful conditions and would be familiar with the physical and psychological stresses of high-speed flight in unproven aircraft. Furthermore, they would already hold security clearances. Candidates had to be less than forty years old, less than five feet eleven inches tall, and have at least 1,500 hours of flying time, much of it in jet aircraft. The initial phase of the selection process identified 110 potential candidates.

A first round of screening produced thirty-two men who met the basic qualifications and were interested in participating. They were sent to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque [New Mexico] for physical examinations. They arrived in groups of six at a time, with each group being tested for seven and a half days. Only one of the thirty-two was disqualified for medical reasons....

The Mercury astronaut candidate physical examinations were extraordinarily thorough. The physical effects of spaceflight on humans were unknown;, so the examinations measured every conceivable physical characteristic. The data would also provide a set of baseline measurements for each astronaut that could be compared to post-spaceflight data in order to identify any physical effects caused by exposure to microgravity and cosmic radiation. By the time the next astronaut candidates were tested for the Gemini program in 1962, their greatly simplified physical exam took only one day.

---
This month's excerpt from American Moonshot by Douglas Brinkley highlights the mindset of Wernher von Braun, who defected to the United States at the end of World War II. He and his team developed the V-2 rocket, the first ballistic missile. They were sent to support America's rocket development at White Sands Proving Ground in southeast New Mexico.

Wernher von Braun had made his first public speech in America, to the El Paso Rotary Club [in January 1947]. "It seems to be a law of nature that all novel technical inventions that have a future for civilian use start out as weapons," he said, before going to predict a future where rocketry took its proper role of propelling satellites and space stations into orbit and enabling missions to the moon and beyond. Von Braun got a thundering ovation and was cheered by the support, but as usual, his ideas were ahead of their time. Before his space dreams could take flight, rocketry would enter new and even more dangerous territory with the postwar development of the first intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The only sensible thing for von Braun to do was, once again, to lie low and develop his ballistic missiles in Fort Bliss-White Sands for U.S. Army purposes while keeping a moon and Mars voyage as a long-term interior motive. In 1946, the Army Signal Corps succeeded in bouncing radio waves off the moon and received the reflected signals back on Earth. This was a stunning achievement, for it established that radio transmissions through space and back to Earth were possible. This public discovery didn't mean anything to [John F.] Kennedy, running for Congress. But to von Braun, it was proof that such signals could in the very near future be adapted to control manned and unmanned spacecraft alike.

---
In connection with Women's History Month, this excerpt from American Moonshot by Douglas Brinkley recognizes the Mercury 13, the first group of women to challenge NASA to consider the possibility of female astronauts. With the passing of Rhea Hurrle Woltman on February 15, 2021, only two of the Mercury 13 are still grounded on this Earth. They are Gene Nora Stumbough Jessen and Wally Funk.

While African Americans' struggle for civil rights was beginning to shake the pillars of Jim Crow, female pilots were struggling for equality in their fight against NASA's patriarchy. They did, however, have one offbeat ally in Dr. William "Randy" Lovelace II. An aeromedicine pioneer, Lovelace was chairman of the Special Advisory Committee on Life Science and from his office in New Mexico had conducted the intensive medical examinations that had helped winnow down the first class of likely astronauts to the final Mercury Seven. although holding what were then traditional views on women's roles in American society, Lovelace believed that women were better equipped physiologically for NASA space travel because they were, on average, shorter and smaller than men, needed less food and oxygen, and had better blood circulation and fewer cardiac problems.

After meeting American aviator Geraldyne "Jerrie" Cobb in 1959, Lovelace invited her to take the same tests as the Mercury astronauts---and was amazed at her aptitude.... Intrigued as to whether Cobb was an anomaly, Lovelace accepted a financial gift from the fabled pilot Jackie Cochran...to examine eighteen other seasoned female pilots at his New Mexico clinic for secret testing.... the top twelve, along with Jerrie Cobb, were [later] christened the "Mercury 13."...

[W]hen NASA leadership learned of the experiment, they made it abundantly clear that the agency wasn't going to employ women astronauts. The impetus for NASA's decision was [President John] Kennedy's May 25, 1961, moonshot announcement, and [NASA Administrator James] Webb's belief that all the agency's astronaut-training energy had to be targeted toward that lunar objective. In other words, it wasn't the time for a shift in gender....

Frustrated that NASA had flummoxed his Mercury 13 project, Lovelace kept fighting a rearguard action from his home in New Mexico, hoping for the inclusion of a woman astronaut on the Gemini roster. But in December 1965, he and his wife were killed in a plane crash, depriving the Mercury 13 of their most devoted advocate. It would be nearly twenty years before Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, lifting off aboard the Space Shuttle flight STS-7---the Challenger---on June 13, 1983.
---Project Manhigh was based at the Aeromedical Field Laboratory at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the 1950s. A single-man gondola carried into the stratosphere was used to evaluate the ability to construct a life-supporting spacecraft and the ability of a human to survive spaceflight. Dr. David Simons piloted Manhigh II, the most successful of the three flights. The following excerpt is from The Pre-Astronauts: Manned Ballooning on the Threshold of Space by Craig Ryan. It is a continuation of last month's Voices.

But the sensation of glory and the satisfaction in a job well done were short-lived. Simons found himself increasingly annoyed with the fickle attentions of the press. they did not understand the real significance of what he had done, nor why he had done it. And because of their professional cynicism, they were incapable of really appreciating it. One of the reporters at the postflight press conference went sniffing for an angle: "Was it a spiritual experience?"

Simons measured his words and spoke as a scientist: "I have a deep regard for the steady, progressive march of mankind. I consider myself extremely fortunate to be able to move a step forward in the gradual pushing back of the frontier of progress. My spiritual experience here was tantamount to that of a biologist looking into a microscope and discovering a new virus."

The reporter challenged the response, accusing Simons of "humanism."

"To me," Simons said, "this is God: to contribute to the progress of mankind." ...

Simons was especially angered by the implication that the unstated goal of Project Manhigh from the beginning, had been to set an altitude record. He bristled at the suggestion that he was in it for personal glory. "I had a profound resentment toward people who thought the scientific part of it was an excuse," he would say. "I felt maligned."

---

Project Manhigh was based at the Aeromedical Field Laboratory at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the 1950s. A single-man gondola carried into the stratosphere was used to evaluate the ability to construct a life-supporting spacecraft and the ability of a human to survive spaceflight. Dr. David Simons piloted Manhigh II, the most successful of the three flights. The following excerpt is from The Pre-Astronauts: Manned Ballooning on the Threshold of Space by Craig Ryan:

On August 24, 1957, Lt. Gen. Samuel E. Anderson, commander of the Air Research and Devleopment Command (ARDC), pinned the Distinguished Flying Cross on David Simons in a ceremony in Baltimore. The citation referred to a "valor above and beyond the call of duty ... under conditions never before experienced." For a brief period following the flight the Manhigh crew were the darlings of the press. Simons was the "daring young Air Force officer" and "the gallant major." An op-ed piece in the New York Times titled "The First Space Man" suggested that Manhigh II's pilot had rised to the rarefied heights as a representative not of his branch of the service or his country, but of all mankind: he "made the trip for all of us. Organized society took this step toward space as it has taken others in the past and will take many more." ... Manhigh had proved, [Colonel John] Stapp announced, that human beings could live outside of Earth's atmosphere. And David simons had proved his mettle as an aeronaut: "He was sort of a one-man band," Stapp explained, "keeping alive with one hand, watching dials, conducting experiments, and snappling camers with the other. Dave could sit in a gondola, handle 20 emergencies, and not die at once."

---
Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh joined the Paperclip Scientists and the US Army's experiments with the German V-2 missiles at White Sands Proving Ground in 1946. He was tasked with developing instruments and methods to photograph and film the launches for evaluation. The following excerpt from Clyde Tombaugh: Discoverer of Planet Pluto by David H. Levy provides a glimpse of his important contributions to the program.

When Tombaugh arrived, the favored launch time was 11 a.m., a time of day when "seeing"---an effect involving the steadiness of the atmosphere---was at its worst. His pictures were criticized for being out of focus by those who could not recognize bad seeing, and Tombaugh's repeated suggestions for launch times early or late in the day went unheeded. "Turbulence? What's that?" Finally, early in December a V-2 countdown was delayed until late in the afternoon. When the launch finally took place, the sun was behind the cameras and low in the sky. Tombaugh's team got sharp pictures of the V-2 up to 110 miles. "We could see the shape of the missile!" ...

The tracking telescope had been considered kind of a joke and even ridiculed. From then on, it was respected. That day in December marked Tombaugh's coming of age at White Sands; he had used his optical skills to accomplish something unique.

The improvement in tracking was so great that from then on Tombaugh's suggested times for launches, early morning or late afternoon, were taken seriously and formulated in to launch windows. The pictures were taken back to Aberdeen Proving Ground, where officials were amazed that the small 5-inch camera, designed by James Edson, had produced such fine results.
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Photo Credits
Robert Goddard towing one of his rockets to the launch site near Roswell about 1931, courtesy of NASA.

WhiteKnightTwo carrying SpaceShipTwo at Spaceport America runway dedication flyover, photo by Loretta Hall.
Unless otherwise credited, all material on this site is © Loretta Hall 2010-2020.