Two Stages to Space

Rocket enthusiasts have dreamed for years of "multistage" rockets with detachable sections that drop off, one by one, after their fuel is exhausted. Dr. Robert H. Goddard, U.S. father of rocketing, patented such a missile, but never succeeded in building one. During World War II, the Germans toyed with the idea. One of their antiaircraft rockets, the unsuccessful Rheintochter (Rhinemaiden), was pushed into the air by a booster that dropped off after rising a mile and a quarter. But no one shot a multi-stage rocket to really high altitudes.

Last week, U.S. Army Ordnance did. A two-stage rocket, fired from White Sands Proving Ground, N. Mex., shot up 250 miles, more than twice the best height (114 miles) reached by the V2, and well outside the earth's gaseous atmosphere.

The Army's record-breaker was made out of a German V2, with its warhead replaced by the small, U.S.-developed "WAC Corporal" rocket. When the combination reached a certain height (the Army did not say how high), the WAC Corporal was fired by electronic control. It zipped out of the V-2's nose added its own speed to that of the V2, and reached 5,000 m.p.h. The empty V-2 fell 20 miles from the firing place; the WAC Corporal was tracked by instruments, apparently fell about 80 miles north of White Sands. Four days later, it had not yet been found.

Army Ordnance can claim that it was the first to send a man-made object outside the earth's atmosphere. At 250 miles up, there is still some air. But it does not behave as a normal gas. Its scattered molecules act more like satellites of the earth, moving on orbits in the earth's gravitational field. Some are shooting up, others curving back. Some may be moving around the earth like infinitesimal moons. A few may escape from the earth entirely. For brief minutes, the WAC Corporal joined this throng of molecular wanderers.

Besides being eager to set this record, U.S. rocketeers may have had a more practical motive. The services are trying to get Congress to authorize a 3,000-mile guided-missile range (TIME, Feb. 28). They say that the White Sands range (150 miles long) is already much too small. This week's feat proved it. If the two-stage rocket had been fired at the proper angle for maximum range, instead of nearly straight up, the WAC Corporal would probably have landed something like 500 miles from the firing point.

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