Word: tularosa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Tangent or Great Circle? To build a track straight and level enough for missiles was a technical tour de force. Air Force experts selected a section of the Tularosa Basin, near Holloman, that is almost as flat as a frozen lake. While figuring theoretically how to lay out the 35,080-ft. track, they considered making it perfectly straight both up-and-down and sideways, but gave this up because the curvature of the earth (the earth considered as a sphere with a 4,000-mile radius) would require either a cut in the ground 35 ft. deep...
...fasteners for the rails, which are 7 ft. apart and three times as heavy as railroad rails. They came in 3Q-ft. sections and were welded together on the spot into 10,000-ft. lengths. Merely fastening them to the concrete slab would not do; the temperature of the Tularosa Basin fluctuates between zero and 120°F. If the rails were fastened in cool weather, a hot summer day might make them expand and buckle out of line. So each 10,000-ft. length of massive rail was stretched 3 ft. by hydraulic jacks. At ordinary temperatures the rails...
...last week a sled carried a missile roaring along it at 3,000 ft. per second (2,000 m.p.h.), which is about the muzzle velocity of a high-power rifle bullet. The Air Force scientists expect much higher speeds. It is fortunate, they say, that the Tularosa Basin is not subject to earthquakes. Even a delicate motion of the earth might throw the track out of perfect alignment and wreck the next missile to be used...
...owners in southern New Mexico's clear and dry Tularosa Basin, Max Rothman's converted chicken coop with the homemade broadcast tower was the best radio station on the air. Because Max, a chubby, balding man of 40, worked at nearby Holloman Air Force Base (like all 50 FM owners), his wife Sima handled the daytime broadcasts, wrote copy, answered the phone and managed to look after four children between platters and chatter. As feeding time grew near, the squalls of her baby son often punctuated her spot announcements, but nobody seemed to mind. After work (designing instruments...
...mechanical voice of the loudspeaker cracked across the clear, dry air of New Mexico's Tularosa Valley: "Ten, nine, eight...