The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

When the Skyrocket was ready to go, a small pump similar to the one used in the V-2 rocket, obtaining its power from decomposed hydrogen peroxide, pumped the subzero liquid oxygen and alcohol aft to the tiny rocket engine. When the two fluids burned in the engine, the resultant expanding gases provided the gigantic thrust that blasted the heavy load off the ground into flight.

Once the very nervous hydrogen peroxide was in the Skyrocket a speck of dirt in the hydrogen peroxide tank or in any of the myriad tub and lines, and the little research ship would be blown to dust. Two models of the Air Force’s X-1, our rival, the only other rocket airplane in the country – using identical fueling – had blown up in launching last year.

Al Carder took no chances with the Skyrocket. The pressurizing gases – helium and nitrogen – were sieved through Kotex to make certain no insidious segment of dust was carried in the explosive fluids, an operation that explained why I had seen cartons of the incongruous supplies stacked in the hangar.

Carder had confidence in his men; they were trained well, yet he watched the serious business alertly, ready to intercede in case of an error. In his mind lay the whole flight plan; each of his assistants had been assigned various functions of the whole. While he watched the immediate operation, he was thinking ahead, anticipating what could go wrong and the consequent steps to be taken toward prevention. He was figuring how to save five minutes’ time in the expensive flight plan – methods of further ensuring its margin of safety.

Headlights flashed onto the field out of the darkness. The cars carrying the engineers, the technicians, and the pilot converged near the front of the hangar, ready to join the caravan that would begin its way slowly across the runway onto the parched, mosaically cracked clay lake.

Preceding the funeral-paced procession was the huge trailer carrying the Skyrocket, active as an atomic bomb, locked securely to its bed. Carder, a general leading a column of tanks, headed the fleet in a radio car. Through the mist that floated in long veils across the dead lake, the white plane was carried, with its entourage of green Douglas cars, a fire truck and an ambulance, into the early-morning light.

The red beacon at the end of the runway flashed green and we began to creep toward the point where the plane was to be unloaded, five miles ahead.

I sat beside Gene May in the back seat of the radio car. In the seat in front of us Carder was issuing last minute orders over the hand mike: “Metro One, this is Metro Six. From now until take-off transmit the wind direction, velocity and temperature every five minutes.” Metro One, a truck with a big, square, searching theodolite on its roof, had been stationed by Carder midway along the path of flight.

The truck answered, “Metro Six, this is Metro One… wind, velocity, and temperature every five minutes, right.” Carder was absorbed in the important details of the flight, preoccupied as though he were straining to remember something.

Straight ahead the faraway mountains were hidden by the mist – the edge of the huge lake on tall sides was lost by the vapor drifts. The ground we moved over was sterile as concrete, no weed, no green – it was difficult to maintain a sense of direction, we seemed to be a ship on a flat sea sliding across an empty clearing bordered by fog. As if by radar, the dreary little parade moved unfalteringly toward the end of the lake.

Another order from Carder: “Metro Two, this is Metro Six… we will be ready for the fire trucks in 30 minutes.” And at the hangar Metro Two called into the moving car, “We’ll have fire trucks alerted in 30 minutes.” If a program requires the use of more than one fire truck, the extra equipment is only sent at the time it is needed. Fire trucks on a test base are kept very busy and their standby time is allotted.

Between radio calls the project coordinator turned around in his seat to Gene May. “would you like a chase plane to take off and check the turbulence at your dive altitude?”

May rapidly shook his head, “No, the ‘school’ will have their planes up this morning, we can check with them.” The matter was no longer Al Carder’s responsibility; May had lifted this concern from Carder’s pile of important details.

Again Al Carder spoke into the radio, “George,” he called Mabry in one of the fleet of cars, “will you check the north-south runway for any debris?” The Skyrocket would eat up three miles of lake before she lifted off, a scrap of driftwood blown in off the desert onto her path would be enough to throw her off balance with her belly fat with explosives.