by Cliff Ball
A few months later, Bell Aircraft, after being given the contract to build a supersonic plane by representatives of the Air Force connected with Area 51, came out with the X-1, designed around the specifications that the Ragnor said would help the aircraft reach and surpass the speed of sound. The X-1 looked like a bullet with wings that resembled the shape of the Browning .50-caliber machine gun bullet that was known to be stable in supersonic flight. The engine, called the XLR11, was the first liquid-fuel rocket engine designed in the United States and it used ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen as propellants to generate a maximum thrust of six thousand pounds. The first test pilot for the aircraft would be the man who shot down the Ragnor ship, and that was Captain Chuck Yeager, who was promoted and given test piloting duties by the government so he would keep his mouth shut about the aliens. He arrived at the airstrip outside of Area 51 the day of his test, not knowing what the aircraft looked like or how it would handle at supersonic speeds.
He went into the hangar and saw the X-1, which was hanging underneath the belly of a B-29, took a few minutes to inspect the aircraft, shook his head a few times, and then turned to a flight engineer, and asked in a rather skeptical tone, “Are you sure this thing is flyable and safe?”
“Yes, Captain Yeager. According to the alien, this is the best design for an aircraft to achieve supersonic flight. I assure you, you have nothing to worry about, sir.”
“I have nothing to worry about? The fact that all of you are taking the word of a captured alien, who claims that this is the best way to go faster than sound, I really have my doubts. How do we know there are no Soviet spies running around here telling their government about this? This is nuts. However, since I’m getting a bigger paycheck to be a test pilot on this rocket-powered machine, I will do as my government tells me to do. Let’s get me strapped in.”
Yeager got into his flight suit, with an oxygen pack attached, and climbed into the cockpit of the X-1. The flight engineers went through the pre-flight check with Yeager and showed him the controls and the buttons to push to activate the rocket once the B-29 let the plane go. The B-29 took off a few minutes later and climbed to an altitude of twenty thousand feet, then the X-1 was detached, and Yeager pushed the button for the rocket engine. The aircraft blasted away from the B-29, and climbed to another twenty thousand feet in less than a minute. As Yeager approached the sound barrier, he felt a rumble throughout the aircraft that he had never experienced before, and then he felt the plane vibrate when he surpassed the sound barrier, and a shockwave of sound reverberated off the aircraft. His pressure suit kept Yeager from passing out as he flew above the speed of sound. After staying in the air for fifteen minutes, Yeager piloted the craft back to Area 51 and glided to a landing, and was swarmed by Air Force personnel. He got out of the X-1 and was greeted by the head flight engineer who said, “Congratulations, sir. You’ve done what we thought was impossible. President Truman also sends his congratulations to you for breaking the sound barrier. The base commander wants you in his office for a de-briefing, while we take out the flight data recorder and analyze the flight.”
Meanwhile, on the Mars Base, the commander was dictating to the computer his daily report, when one of his aides came rushing into the commanders’ office, breaking his concentration on the report, so the commander asked, “What news do you have for me that you come rushing in here?”
“Sir, we have a report of a sonic boom being recorded in the United States. According to the Terran who was in the area at the time, it seems like they now have aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier.”
“I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, that’s why we’re here. Did the contact on the ground say where in the United States this sonic boom occurred?”
“They only heard the sonic boom, didn’t see any kind of aircraft. They were visiting the Grand Canyon when they heard it, sir.” said the aide.
“Well, I’m just glad to know these humans are finally advancing in their technology, it’s about time. Keep me informed of anything new.”
As the Air Force began trying different variations of the supersonic jet, which sometimes began to become more dangerous for Yeager and other test pilots, some computer engineers took apart one of the Ragnor computers to study the components making up this desk-top sized computer, instead of the room sized versions the military was using. The computer was opened, and they discovered small electronic parts that were currently beyond the humans’ ability to create. So, they made the Ragnor translate everything from the Ragnor language into English, so the scientists could begin to figure out how to create this technology for the United States. A few weeks later, English language translation software was finally finished by the Ragnor, so the computer technicians were ordered to find out how the Ragnor started going into space first, since the Joint Chiefs didn’t want the United States to progress too fast technologically, they wanted to take baby steps as it were. When it was discovered that the aliens started out using rocket ships to launch into space, the military realized they had the means to create rockets big enough to leave Earth and carry humans. The question was fuel, should it be atomic powered or should they use what was being used for the supersonic test flights, a combination of rocket fuel and liquid oxygen. They decided on liquid oxygen and rocket fuel, so in case of a catastrophic failure, the launch site wouldn’t be poisoned by radiation from the atomic powered engine if it were to explode.
As they were working on the technology for bigger, faster rockets, the United States government also wanted the application to be used for nuclear weapons, in the form of intercontinental ballistic missiles, which was being worked on by Wernher von Braun and some of the team who had worked on the nuclear bombs used on Japan. CIA spies informed the United States that the Soviet Union was working on creating some of the same technology; apparently they had taken apart the downed alien spacecraft in their country, and figured out a little bit of the technology on their own, since none of the aliens on board had survived. Some of the smaller rockets that were created were launched from the underside of B-29’s with scientific tools to test the outer atmosphere of Earth, to see what was needed to protect anyone who would eventually be launched into space. The Air Force, calling the tests Project Vanguard, kept trying to launch full sized rockets from Cape Canaveral, Florida, into orbit, but most of the Project met with total failure as many of the rockets blew up on the launch pad, failed to achieve orbit, or veered off course and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The scientists and engineers were frustrated, but kept trying because the government did not want the Soviet Union to beat the United States.
The world, and especially the United States, was taken by complete and total surprise when the Soviet made satellite, Sputnik, was launched into orbit by a missile that had originally carried nuclear warheads on October 4, 1957. This occurred almost exactly ten years after the breaking of the sound barrier, and caused the government of the United States to go into a panic, starting the Space Race between the two nations. Congress, calling this the Sputnik crisis, called for an Advanced Research Projects Agency, not knowing about Area 51, and for the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA for short, through the National Aeronautics and Space Act passed by Congress on July 29, 1958. Before the United States could successfully launch a rocket into orbit of their own, the Soviets this time launched Sputnik 2 a month later, with a passenger, a dog named Laika. The satellite was never meant to return to Earth, so the dog died in orbit.
On Mars, the commander was taking a tour of the base, when his aide came rushing over to him, a little excited it seemed, so the commander said, “Let me guess, something has happened on Earth.”
“Yes sir, something most definitely has happened. The Russians launched a satellite into orbit, called Sputnik. The whole Earth, but, mostly the United States, is in a state of shock over the launch. The United States, from what I’ve learned, has tried over and over again to launch one of their own, but those keep m
eeting with failure. Should we do something to help them out?”
“Unless the Russians and the Americans set up nuclear weapons platforms in Earth’s orbit, then there’s no way we’re going to help anyone out. Our job is to wait for a first contact to come, which will probably happen a few years from now, instead of the experts who say sometime in the next century. I really don’t want to make the humans mad at us, so we do not interfere. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
On December 6, 1957, the United States decided to televise a launch of a rocket and satellite called Vanguard TV3 from Cape Canaveral to prove that the United States could indeed launch a vehicle into orbit. It was a small satellite designed to test the launch capabilities of the three-stage Vanguard rocket and study the effects of the environment on a satellite and its systems in Earth orbit. It was also to be used to measure the Earths’ gravitational field. As it attempted to launch, the booster ignited and it started to rise, but two seconds after liftoff, after rising to about four feet, the rocket lost thrust and began to settle back down to the launch pad. As it settled against the launch pad, the fuel tanks ruptured and exploded, destroying the rocket and severely damaging the launch pad. The Vanguard satellite was thrown clear and landed on the ground a short distance away with its transmitters still sending out a beacon signal. This was a big black eye to the United States, especially when the big city newspapers had a field day in headlines. There were numerous plays on words with the Sputnik, such as "Flopnik", "Kaputnik", and "Stayputnik” This angered the scientists and engineers who worked on the TV3, who immediately went to work building a rocket that would not fail on the launch pad and cause them to look like idiots.
Eighty-four days later, on February 1, 1958, Explorer 1 was successfully launched into orbit, and was carrying a mission payload of scientific instruments. The orbiter was designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the rocket, called Juno 1, was modified from a Jupiter-C rocket by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. The science instruments were designed by James Van Allen, who had indirect help from Area 51 scientists, they had wanted to detect the radiation surrounding Earth as described in the Ragnor computer, which Van Allen had no idea was actually surrounding the Earth. The science instrument that detected the radiation was the Geiger counter, which was overwhelmed by the strong radiation coming from the belt of charged particles trapped in space by the Earth's magnetic field. The field was named the Van Allen Belts in honor of James Van Allen, since he designed the equipment to detect the field. This also pleased the scientists at Area 51, the technology they were creating was actually working, too bad they had to go at such a slow pace as not to alert everyone in the world that the United States actually was more technologically more advanced than anyone realized, including everyone in the United States who didn’t work at Area 51 or Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
“Sir, the Americans have finally successfully launched their first satellite!”
“Well good for them. Lieutenant, would you please stop telling me what the Russians or the Americans are doing with their space programs. The only time you should inform me of any Earth space activity is if they show up in Mars’ orbit, with a fleet of starships surrounding us and about to attack us. Understood?”
“Understood, sir.”
Scientists at Area 51 also worked on making satellites powered by solar energy, so they could have continuous contact with a satellite long after the last official communications occurred with Earth and the orbiter. The first test came when Vanguard 1 was launched on March 17, 1958; its first mission was to test a three stage launch vehicle as part of Project Vanguard and to measure the effects of the environment on a satellite and its systems in Earth orbit. The satellite was launched into a high enough orbit to last for more than five hundred years, or so the scientists had hoped; but, due to solar radiation pressure and atmospheric drag during high levels of solar activity, it was estimated that the satellites’ lifetime would be only two hundred and forty years. For the scientists at Area 51, that statistic didn’t matter to them; they were only interested in the development of increasingly more advanced satellites that could detect any and all alien ships coming near Earth. The Vanguard 1 kept communicating officially with Earth until 1964, when flight control at Area 51 turned off the transmitter on the Vanguard to NASA. For NASA, the official story was that the satellites’ solar powered radio had worked beyond its specifications, so it had gone dead, and NASA really thought the radio had gone dead. For Area 51, the radio continued to work for them and relay back to them where all Earth space activity was occurring, even the activity of the Soviet space activities. The satellite itself remained in orbit decades later, even after Area 51 had moved on with bigger and more advanced satellites.
The CIA also used Area 51 to build and test high altitude spy planes, the most notable spy plane being the Lockheed U-2. President Eisenhower had been asked by the CIA to get permission from Pakistan so that a secret US intelligence base could be built and used to conduct reconnaissance on the Soviet Union. The facility was established at Badaber, ten miles from Peshawar, close to the Soviet border, and was used to intercept messages from the Soviet Union. The CIA recruited Gary Powers as a pilot of a U-2 because he had an outstanding record in flying single engine jet aircraft, and they wanted him to fly over the Soviet Union and conduct espionage. The CIA thought the U-2 flew too high to be intercepted by other aircraft or shot down by missiles, but, on May 1, 1960, all of that changed.
Powers’ orders were to photograph ICBM sites in and around Sverdlovsk and Plesetsk in Russia, and then land in Norway. The Soviet Air Defense forces knew a spy plane was supposed to fly over the region, so they were on red alert status when the U-2 finally was detected flying over Soviet air space. Lieutenant General of the Soviet Air Force Yevgeniy Savitskiy, ordered, “I want all alert aircraft on the foreign crafts’ course to attack the foreign aircraft, and ram it if necessary".
The Soviets even attempted to shoot down the U-2 with surface-to-air missiles, but, due to the extreme altitude of the plane, the missiles never came close. One enterprising Soviet pilot, Captain Igor Mentyukov caught up to Powers’ U-2 at sixty-five thousand feet and attempted to ram the American spy plane. Instead, since the U-2 was a tricky plane to fly and anything could upset the aircrafts’ balance, including another plane like the Sukhoi Su-9 interrupting the air flow around the spy plane, the U-2 flipped over and one of the wings broke off. Powers ejected, without destroying the aircraft like he was supposed to, and parachuted to a landing, only to be immediately surrounded and arrested by the Soviets. Unfortunately for him, the plane also survived mostly intact, giving the Soviets a major propaganda weapon to use against the Americans since the Soviet Union and the United States were supposed to meet for a summit in Paris in two weeks, which ends up not happening.
NASA attempted to claim that Powers was flying a mission for them and even presented a photo of the U-2 painted in NASA colors. President Eisenhower, assuming that Powers was dead, issued a statement saying how much he regretted the loss of an American pilot. Soviet Premier Khrushchev said that he never claimed Powers was dead; the Soviets had Powers, put him on trial for espionage, and locked him up. Powers was released two years later when the US released a Soviet political prisoner and they were exchanged. Once back in the United States, the powers-that-be ripped into Powers for not destroying the U-2 because it gave away American secrets.
Chapter Nine
Yuri Gagarin, from the Soviet Union, became the first human to orbit the Earth on April 12, 1961, which took the United States by surprise, because they were preparing their astronaut, Alan Shepard, to become the first man in space. Gagarin was in orbit for one hour and forty-eight minutes, and whistled a song called, "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows,” and said to ground control, “The Earth is blue. How wonderful. It is amazing.” While in orbit, he was also promoted from senior lieutenant to major.
Meanwhile, the newly formed NASA had been working on Proj
ect Mercury since 1958 to get American astronauts into orbit and chose seven men for Mercury out of one hundred and ten to go into orbit. So, on May 5, 1961, after Gagarin became the first man in orbit, Alan Shepard became the first American in space. He named his Mercury capsule, Freedom 7, and was launched by a Redstone rocket, which was a rocket primarily used as a medium range ballistic missile. This flight was only for fifteen minutes and was sub-orbital, but it showed the United States that they could launch people into orbit. The capsule splashed down in the Atlantic near where it was supposed to and Shepard was picked up by the Navy. Khrushchev derided the effort by calling it a piddling little shot, not on the same grand scale as what the Grand Hero of the Soviet Union Cosmonaut Gagarin had done.
Twenty days later, President Kennedy declared first at Rice University and a few days later in front of a special joint session of Congress, “First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish,
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
