Bumper 8 launch

V-2/WAC Corporal

This is the first launch from the Cape. It took place on July 24^th, 1950 – a hybrid rocket that combined a German V-2 1^st stage with an American WAC Corporal 2^nd stage. There were 35 people at the launch site, Complex 3 at CCAFS. Werhner Von Braun, the German rocket expert who was the father of the U.S. missile program, is said to have watched the launch from the top of the Cape’s lighthouse. My father, Weather Officer for the launch, was in the lighthouse-keeper’s quarters downstairs, where the 30^th Weather Detachment of the 6^th Weather Squadron was billeted. He did not know Von Braun was there until I told him some 50 years later. His comment – ‘I was too busy concentrating on forecasting the launch to notice’. That kind of determination is the reason the American space program has always been so successful. This launch art is dedicated to all who have and will take part in that monumental effort.