Make: Maverick Scientist

4 THE AIR FORCE WEAPONS LABORATORY

Since visiting Carlsbad Caverns as a ten-year-old, reading about the White Sands Proving Ground in National Geographic, and watching Nike missile launches from White Sands during desert-survival training, I had always been fascinated by New Mexico. I spent the first night on the way to Albuquerque at a Travelodge in Roswell, where Robert Goddard had moved to conduct his pioneering liquid-fuel rocket experiments during the 1930s.

I visited the Roswell museum that features Goddard’s workshop and his rocket launch tower at the front entrance. I left Roswell the next morning fantasizing that someday, I would marry a pretty New Mexican girl and fulfill my childhood dream of working at White Sands Missile Range. ...