America's First Rocket Test Site
Near Roswell, New Mexico
Before Roswell became famous for what may or may not have fallen from the sky in nineteen forty-seven, it was the site of something that unambiguously came down from the sky and then went back up again. For more than a decade, Roswell was home to the only operational rocket testing facility in the United States, and the man who built it was the father of modern rocketry.
Robert Hutchings Goddard arrived in Roswell in July of nineteen thirty with backing from the Guggenheim family and ideas about liquid-fueled rockets that almost no one else in America took seriously at the time. He chose southeastern New Mexico deliberately. The land was flat and open. The sky was clear for most of the year. The population was sparse enough that an exploding experimental rocket would not alarm anyone who mattered. And the dry desert air was easy to work in.
Goddard set up his operations on a property called Mescalero Ranch, at the end of East Mescalero Road on the eastern outskirts of Roswell. On the surrounding land and on nearby acreage he called Eden Valley, he built what was, at that time, America's first and only rocket testing installation. The first successful launch from Roswell took place on December thirtieth, nineteen thirty.
Goddard worked in Roswell from nineteen thirty to nineteen thirty-two and again from nineteen thirty-four to nineteen forty-two, twelve years in total. During that time he and his small crew made fundamental advances in rocket engineering, solving problems of launch control, fuel systems, tracking, and vehicle recovery. Of the fifty-six flights he completed at Roswell, seventeen reached altitudes above one thousand feet.
The world caught up to Goddard's work only after his death in nineteen forty-five. The principles he proved in the desert east of Roswell became the foundation on which the space age was built. The Roswell Museum and Art Center preserves a recreation of his workshop. The high school in town carries his name. And east of downtown, where Mescalero Ranch once stood, the air is quiet.
