Wide-open skies helped imagine what’s beyond

Like George Washington, Robert Goddard had his own, though nondestructive, relationship with a cherry tree. The young scientist-to-be climbed up a cherry tree to look skyward.

Author Loretta Hall quotes a 1927 autobiographical essay by Goddard as saying that he imagined how grand it would be to create a device that might have the possibility of traveling from Earth to Mars.

“That daydream became the compulsion that defined the rest of his life,” Hall wrote in her book “Out of This World – New Mexico’s Contributions to Space Travel.”

The pioneering rocket scientist moved from Massachusetts to New Mexico for the required open space to test rockets. Goddard worked near Roswell in the 1930s and early ’40s.

Hall has fashioned a book that’s a welcome explanation of the state’s many contributions to space travel, bringing the reader to the present with a discussion of the construction of a state-sponsored spaceport for commercial travel near Truth or Consequences.

In between are chapters on numerous subjects related to the book’s theme. Among them are:

• Operation Paperclip, which was the post-World War II “relocation” of top Nazi German scientists who developed the V2 rockets to the United States. The Germans soon were working closely with American scientists who were based at a new rocket testing facility called the White Sands Proving Grounds.

• The use of animals in high-altitude helium balloon experiments, especially as they related to cosmic radiation. This was part of the mission of the Air Force, which had a supporting role at Holloman Air Development Center in Alamogordo, Hall writes.

• The planning and training in New Mexico for tests of high-altitude manned balloon flights.

What is humorous and strange is Hall’s inclusion of a chapter on the 1947 Roswell Incident and other alleged UFO sightings in New Mexico. The subject is simply out of place as a full chapter in a history of Earth-based scientific research and space travel. It should have been referenced in an addendum, if that.

David Steinberg is the Journal’s Books editor and an Arts writer.

Loretta Hall discusses, signs “Out of This World” at 6 p.m. Monday, June 13, at the Rio Rancho Public Library, 755 Loma Colorado Drive NE, Rio Rancho, and 7 p.m. Thursday, June 16, at Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande NW.