Page 193 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Southwest USA & National Parks

INTRODUCING NE W MEXIC O  191

Dr. John P. Stapp testing acceleration in his
Sonic Wind I rocket sled in 1954 at Holloman Air
Force Base near White Sands Missile Range. His
research improved aircraft seatbelt technology.

Ham the space chimp is
Goddard’s assistants (left helped out of his capsule
to right) in his workshop after becoming the first
were N. T. Ljungquist, A. W. living creature to be sent
Kisk, and C. W. Mansur. into space in 1961.

Rocket Science
Robert H. Goddard (1882–1945) is often
referred to as “the father of modern rocketry,”
developing rocket science in his workshop
in Roswell, New Mexico (see p231). He
launched his first liquid-fueled rocket in
Massachusetts in 1926 and performed 56
flight tests in Roswell in the 1930s. By 1935
he had developed rockets that could carry
cameras and record instrument readings.
An altitude record was set in 1937, when
a Goddard rocket reached 2 miles (3 km)
above the earth.

A Goddard rocket
without its casing, The space shuttle touching down on the
being studied on Northrup strip at the White Sands Missile
an “assembly frame.” Range on March 30, 1982. This was the first
time in its three-flight history that the shuttle
landed in New Mexico. The shuttle program
ended in 2011, but White Sands remains a
designated missile testing ground.
New Mexico’s role in space, including astronaut
training, is featured in the New Mexico Museum
of Space History (p228). Here astronaut Steven
Robinson is training in a buoyancy tank to
simulate life in space in preparation for his 1998
mission on the Discovery shuttle.

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