Apollo moon landing after 50 years: New Mexico has long history of space exploration

 

 

 

Here's a brief — and far from complete — history of space in the Land of Enchantment.

900 B.C.: The first people settle in what is now known as Chaco Canyon, in northern New Mexico. The Chacoans, who would inhabit the area until about AD 1250, are close observers of the skies, and their observations provided them with the ability to time their agricultural and ceremonial events.

1930: Robert Goddard moves his outdoor rocket laboratory from Massachusetts to southeastern New Mexico. He liked the combination of the remoteness, the climate and level terrain, plus a decided lack of population. Goddard's Mescalero Ranch became the first rocket testing installation in the United States. That ranch saw a rocket shoot up 2,000 feet at a speed of 500 miles per hour, which exceeded tests in Massachusetts. He went on to pioneer concepts of electronic propulsion, and fired up plenty more rockets.

1930: Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto, now considered a dwarf planet, in 1930. Tombaugh worked at White Sands Missile Range in the 1950s, and later taught astronomy at NMSU. Tombaugh Observatory, on the NMSU campus, routinely hosts open houses for the public. He died in 1997 while living in Las Cruces.

1944: At the end of World War II, a team of German rocket scientists surrendered to the U.S. Army, including the famed Wernher von Braun, who helped develop the V-2 rocket, the first long-range guided ballistic missile. It became the first man-made object to travel into space in 1944. The rocket research by the German and American scientists was a part of the Hermes projects at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico; Fort Bliss, Texas; and Huntsville, Alabama.

1947: In June 1947, W.W. "Mac" Brazel tells the Roswell Daily Record that he and his son came across a "large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks" on their property north of Roswell. Was it a UFO? The U.S. government says it was a weather balloon. However, the UFO legend persists and has come to define the eastern New Mexico city of Roswell.

1954: The Daisy Test Track at Holloman Air Force Base was designed to test a variety of human body positions and the G-forces associated with them to understand the impact to space flight. On Dec. 10, 1954, Col. John Stapp rode the sled on Daisy's High Speed Test Track for 5 seconds. Stapp reached a speed of 632 miles per hour, or Mach 0.9. He stopped in 1.4 seconds and was injured in the deceleration impact. Ultimately, Stapp walked away with several broken ribs and a temporarily detached retina, but provided the team what they needed, information on how gravitational stress affects a human body. Projects and testing continue today at the High Speed Test Track.

1960: Project Excelsior, through high-altitude parachute jumps, attempted to research the limits of what humans could endure in the event that they needed to eject out of their space shuttles. Col. Joe Kittinger, on Aug. 16, 1960, jumped from a gondola over the Tularosa Basin at over 102,000 feet. He fell free for over 84,000 feet and reached 614 miles per hour, exceeding speed of sound. Thirteen minutes and 45 second later, he landed unharmed.

1961: On Jan. 31, 1961, a chimpanzee named HAM — named after the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, where the first chimps were trained for space flight — spent 6.6 minutes in space. He was rescued in good condition and lived out his next 17 years at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. HAM did come home after his death in 1983 and is buried at the International Space Hall of Fame at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo.

1965: Astronaut Frank Borman flies Gemini 7, which in December 1965 spent a then-record 14 days in space. He also flew on Apollo 8, the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, in December 1968. Borman would retire in Las Cruces. The Borman Autoplex bears his name.

1966-1971: White Sands Test Facility served as an extension of Johnson Space Center in Houston and at its peak in the Apollo era (1966-1971), employed 1,700 people. Among the projects conducted at the test facility and nearby White Sands Proving Ground (later White Sands Missile Range) were demonstrating the adequacy of the Apollo launch escape system and the command module's Earth landing system.

1972: Astronaut Harrison Schmitt, born July 3, 1935, in Santa Rita, New Mexico, was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 17. In December 1972, Schmitt spent three days exploring the moon. Schmitt later served as a U.S. senator from New Mexico.

1982: The White Sands Space Harbor served as the space shuttle backup landing facility and while often used for testing, was used only once for a real space landing —the Space Shuttle Columbia on March 30, 1982.

2004: The International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight begins in Las Cruces. The event, held each October, brings in space industry experts to talk about the latest trends and newest technologies.

2011: Spaceport America officially opens in southern Sierra County. Virgin Galactic, the spaceport's signature tenant, plans to launch paying customers into space for a weightless experience before they drift back to Earth's surface. Myriad businesses and agencies use the spaceport for testing rockets and other space equipment.

Lucas Peerman can be reached at 575-541-5446, lpeerman@lcsun-news.com or on Twitter @LittleGuyInATie. Cassie McClure is a freelance writer and can be reached at cassiemcclure@gmail.com.