Out of This World – New Mexico’s Contributions to Space Travel by Loretta Hall; Rio Grande Books, Los Ranchos, New Mexico; $19.95 (Paperback); 2011.
For a good many readers, I’m sure you’re hungry to slip into a spacesuit and head for the heavens. No doubt you are also following the test flights of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceline. Those commercial suborbital treks in the future are to depart and land at New Mexico’s Spaceport America.
While that’s the up and going future, New Mexico is the epicenter for history-making space-related endeavors. You’ll be surprised how many space exploits have had their anchor in the state.
And the good news here is that author Loretta Hall has done an outstanding job of corralling New Mexico’s leadership role in this regard.
The cover may be a bit deceiving as this book tells the story of Robert Goddard’s early liquid fueled rocket efforts, the transformative V-2 launches from White Sands under Operation Paperclip; Holloman’s role in animal test shots that cleared the way for human space travelers; the still-scary looking rocket sled tests, as well as Manhigh and Excelsior balloon jumps of humans; and New Mexico being the literal training ground for Moon-bound Apollo astronauts. Of course, there’s a little touch of UFOs given Roswell’s encounter with a crashing saucer – or is it a close encounter of the questionable kind?
The book’s closing chapters discusses the X Prize and concludes with a look at the recreational space travel promise of the Virgin Galactic enterprise. That project is to be home-based at New Mexico’s Spaceport America, still under construction. The site will also be used by numbers of envelope-pushing rocket enterprises.
This is a well-written, engaging and informative look at New Mexico’s past, present, and future ties to space. A special tip of the helmet visor goes to Hall for her excellent research and writing skills. It’s a must-have book to carry along on any voyage to New Mexico, the sign post up ahead that marks the history-making and future-creating role of the state.
For more information on this volume and other offerings from Rio Grande Books, go to:
By Leonard David