by Alan Tucker
• Public debate followed about the impact of rocket facilities and the presence of military personnel on the traditional lands of Aboriginal people living in the range. The first Native Patrol Officer, WB McDougall, was appointed in March 1947 and a second, RA Macaulay, in 1956. Their job was to remove Aboriginal people from the areas where atomic bombs would be tested. Those positions ceased to exist in 1974.
• The old Salisbury munitions factory and airfield, 50 kilometres north of Adelaide, were chosen as the main scientific base for weapons research.
• The range-head base was constructed at a new site named. Woomera village. Len Beadell surveyed the site. The main facilities (post office, churches, swimming pool, sports facilities, store, social clubs, etc) were constructed between 1947 and 1954.
• Women could only attend the Mess on Saturday nights or on designated party nights.
• To bring water to Woomera a 170-kilometre pipeline was brought northward from Port Augusta. It tapped into the Morgan–Whyalla pipeline, which carried water from the Murray River. Construction commenced in August 1948 and was completed in June 1949.
• Seaslug rocket trials for the Royal Navy began in earnest in 1953, although limited tests had been conducted before then. Tests ended in 1972.
• The first Jindivik pilotless aircraft was tested in August 1952. It was a high-performance, jet-propelled, surface-to-air missile which was controlled using two-way radio signals. Tests ended in 1980.
• RA Benson was permanently blinded on 30 September 1953 when a CTV5 rocket ignited prematurely and fired the second stage motor.
• On 23 April 1969 Australian Prime Minister John Gorton announced a joint Australia–US project to operate Nurrungar, a military satellite communication system facility on the rocket range, 19 kilometres from Woomera. US servicemen and technicians lived in the village alongside British and Australian personnel.
• On 17 October 1974 the British and Australian governments announced they would wind down the Woomera Rocket Range activities, redeploy the staff and restore the natural environment. The range closed in 1980, but the village remains inhabited. During the range’s 33 years of operation about 13,000 tests were conducted, 3,500 bombs dropped and nearly 20 new weapons produced for the military.
• From 2001 to 2006 JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) commissioned the University of Queensland to test-fly a prototype of the next generation of supersonic transport. It was designed to travel at twice the speed of sound. Tests were conducted on the Woomera Rocket Range. Future hypersonic Scramjets are planned to travel in excess of six times the speed of sound. It is predicted that commercial aircraft of the future may be able to fly at 16,000 kilometres per hour.
• In 2006 NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) selected two US rocket design companies, Rocketplane Kistler and Space X, to develop and test the commercial capability of a rocket to carry cargo to the International Space Station. Woomera is the planned launch site. The contract is worth $270 million. If tests are successful, the rocket will replace the current Space Shuttle.
HISTORY OF ROCKETS
• Rockets were invented by the Chinese more than 1,000 years ago and used as weapons at least 800 years ago. The technology travelled west to India, where in 1799 Tipu Sultan’s soldiers used rockets to good effect in a battle against a British army. When rocket technology later reached Europe, several armies used it as a weapon of war, with varying degrees of success.
• Early twentieth-century science-fiction writers such as Jules Verne and HG Wells imagined the rocket’s possibilities for more peaceful uses (such as flying to the moon).
• The German military used V1 and V2 rockets to terrorise the populations of British cities during the latter years of the Second World War (1939–1945). Scientists in the German rocket development team were captured at war’s end, some by the US and others by Russian troops. Both countries wanted German knowledge of rocket construction to help build their own long-range (intercontinental) missiles.
• Rockets had the potential to change the balance of power in the world, especially if they could be fitted with nuclear warheads. They offered the means of attacking a distant enemy without risking the lives of homeland forces.
• Russia’s rocket technology advanced more rapidly than the US’s. They were the first of the two Cold War countries to put a satellite into space (Sputnik, in 1957), the first to crash-land a rocket on the moon (1959) and the first to put a man into orbit (Yuri Gargarin in 1961). The US were first to land men on the moon (20 July 1969).
• Each year billions of dollars are spent by military organisations on rocket research.
• There have been many positive technological advances from rocket research. Appliances and materials developed include Teflon, artificial human hearts, CAT scans, MRI machines, lasers (for example, as used in DVD players), communication devices used in mobile phones, solar panels, satellites (such as for weather forecasting, television relays, Internet communications), remote control devices, cordless appliances and many miniature and lightweight devices and fabrics.
RADIATION
• The survival of victims of nuclear bombs depends on how close they are to the hypocentre. Those in close proximity are killed by blast and heat. Those a little farther away, who survive those effects, suffer from radiation and become ill within hours or days. Individuals who survive acute radiation effects later suffer increased incidence of organ cancer. The cancers occur years or even decades later.
MISCELLANEOUS
• The character Kenny is based on Len (Lennie) Beadell (1923–1995). He was a warrant officer in the Australian Army Survey Corps during the Second World War and served in New Guinea. After the war he stayed in the services and worked in the Army for the Department of Supply as a surveyor and explorer. His official title was Range Reconnaissance Officer. He surveyed the site of Woomera village and chose the Emu Field and Maralinga test sites. His ashes are spread on the rocket range. During his lifetime he wrote six books about his outback experiences.
• During the 1950s South Australia’s primary and secondary schools were quite separate and so high school years were numbered from one – year eight was called first year, year nine was called second year, etc. In the 1970s the education system became more holistic, and all grades were renumbered from reception to 12.
• The South Australian library is still on North Terrace, but is now in three sections: the Adelaide City Council Lending Library, and the two non-lending libraries, the State Library of South Australia and the Mortlock Library.
• The first Superman comic was published in June 1938. The series continues today.
• The polio virus was identified and photographed on 11 November 1953. The Salk vaccine for poliomyelitis was first used on a large scale across Australia in 1956. The last polio epidemic in Australia occurred in 1961.
• Sister Elizabeth Kenny, who devised alternative methods to treat polio sufferers, died on 30 November 1951.
• Rabbits are an introduced species that was brought to Australia by European settlers. They bred prolifically because they had no natural predators in Australia. By the late 1940s they were in plague proportions and estimated to number in the hundreds of millions.
• The myxoma virus is spread by fleas and mosquitoes and affects only hares and rabbits. Myxomatosis was introduced into the Australian rabbit population in 1950 and successfully eradicated between 80% and 99% of rabbits. It was more deadly in more populated areas than in desert places. Surviving rabbits have built up resistance to the disease.
• The Australian test cricket team won the Ashes back from England in 1959. The Australian team currently holds the trophy.
• The Ashes trophy was created in 1882 after Australia beat England in a test match for the first time. After its birth in Australia, the Ashes urn has only ever returned to Australia twice—in 1988 as part of the country’s bicentennial celebrations, and for the 2006/07 Ashes series. During the fl
ight from England the trophy occupied a £6,000 business-class seat and spent part of the journey handcuffed to the wrist of a museum curator.
• The number of test-match playing countries has grown from the five of 1953 (Australia, England, India, South Africa and the West Indies) to ten (with the inclusion of Bangladesh, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe).
• Beryl’s idea for covering the cricket ground became a reality. The first night game of Australian cricket was played in the late 1970s, during Kerry Packer’s World Series cricket. The first match played under a roof was a day-night game between Australia and South Africa at Colonial Stadium, Melbourne (now Telstra Dome) in 2000.
• Graeme Hole flew off to Perth and scored 12 and 20 playing for South Australia against Western Australia in November 1953. Scores of 117 and 226 followed in the next two matches. By season’s end his first-class aggregate was second only to Colin McDonald. Graeme Hole’s playing career ended five seasons later, after he ruptured his spleen in taking a catch. He died in Adelaide in 1990, aged 59.
• Flights between England and South Australia took 7 days in 1953. Common overnight stops included Tripoli (Libya), Aden (Yemen), Colombo (Ceylon, now Sri Lanka), Singapore and Darwin (NT) before flying on to Adelaide. Commercial flights now take approximately 24 hours to cover the same distance. Royal Australian Air Force planes can do it in much less time.
• The Cold War between the US and the USSR continued from 1946 until the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thanks to the May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust, who provided me with their Canberra studio for two weeks in July 2005. The creative writing process began there and then.
About the Author
ALAN TUCKER has spent half of his 60 years as a city dweller and half in rural surroundings. He juggled life as both a teacher and a writer for 20 years but has now retired from teaching to devote himself to full-time writing. He has a small backyard shed-studio but does much of his research and writing in public libraries, Australia’s secret treasures.
Alan’s other titles include My Australian Story: The Bombing of Darwin, My Australian Story: Cyclone Tracy, My Australian Story: Gallipoli and Iron in the Blood.
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First published by Scholastic Australia in 2009.
This electronic edition published, 2014
E-PUB/MOBI eISBN: 978-1-925-06418-6
Text copyright © Alan Tucker, 2009
Cover copyright © Scholastic Australia, 2013
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