chapter 320
Zim Smith Bike Path
7/10/2013
sometimes it is rocket science
The bike path goes right past the Malta Rocket Test Site in Luther Forest . This is within the forbidden zone behind the barbed wire fence. But I wanted to see the WW2 era rocket gantry this country used to test and convert V-2 rockets into the Hermes 1A rocket. This is building 21 Ram Jet Lab. Test Station #3 with the flames is across the street. The fledgeling Hermes Project was created back in 1945-1947. Local GE scientists (video) were crucial to the evolution of our rocketry program that led to the man on the moon and our weapons systems.
My shot from the Cessna shows Saratoga Lake, the new Global Foundries chip plant, and the Malta Test Station directly interlinked with the shameful? / necessary? Operation Paperclip (video) that brought 130 Nazi scientist here. Within two months after Hitler's suicide hundreds of V2 Nazi rockets were shipped to White Sands New Mexico for testing. Werner Von Braun was assigned there but also lived in REXFORD working with GE scientists here. This was a monumental crash program in the interests of national security; the results of which give us todays applications of satellites, GPS guidance and cell phones. [CIA - Nazi video]
They don't like to talk a lot about it but they first we had to clean up the toxic pollutants and the bombs before the construction began to make semiconductor microchips for the world.
It looks all pretty and nice now for the recreationists (including our Misha dog walking).
Retirees Jim, Bill, Pat and I took a 14 mile bike ride from the Zim Smith to Luther Forest with this nice new connector. Misha liked it before the new paving (photo album).
Flashback to 1983: thirty years ago Jim and I made the 40 mile round trek from Clifton Park to Saratoga Springs on our 10 speeds to visit the track and have the strawberry champagne cocktail on Broadway. Bike technology was nearly the same but our newly invented IBM XT computers only had a 10 Mb hard drive, enough to hold the contents of this page. Thanks rocket scientists.
1942 Peenemunde test & launch site (static rocket stand design copied at Malta)
eenemünde, Germany
6 May 1944 Wernher Von Braun visits Nordhausen V2 factory to get more forced labor.
7 Oct 1944 Uncle Nelson shot down on Mission 669 which included targets of opportunity at Nordhausen airfield.
Mar 1945 Richard Porter in Germany, heads Hermes
11 Apr 1945 Nordhausen liberated.
Aug 1945 Von Braun arrive Virginia
Aug 1945 Von Braun secret meeting GE test center Schenectady escorted by James Hamill
Aug 1945 Von Braun to Fort Strong, Boston
1 Sep 1945 Von Braun to Fort Bliss Texas
1945 Hermes Ramjet missile development under Major General James Hamill and Ordnance Missile Command Guided Missile Development Colonel Holger Toftoy
14 Mar 1946 first successful static V2 engine test in U.S. at Malta with GE Engineering team. The Malta Test Operation
1 Jul 1960 Von Braun first Director of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
2 Aug 1969 Von Braun admits to being in the Nazi SS.
Fitzroy RPI 1949. Jim RPI 1968, Pat RPI 1968, 1969, 1970
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