Here is the fourth in a series of photographs centered on the early history of space flight on Cape Canaveral mostly taken during a tour organized by the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse Foundation. Google the foundation for details of future tours. Here we explore the sites closests to the Lighthouse: Launch Complex 21 and 22.
“Vengance Weapons” re-purposed
Vergeltungswaffe 1 (Vengance Weapon 1 AKA V-1), produced at Peenemünde on the Baltic Sea was first used against Great Britan by Germany one week after the D-day landings. 8,025 of these flying bombs, the first cruise missles, caused the death of 22,892 people, mostly civilians. The first cruise missles for the USA were developed less than 1,000 feet away from the lighthouse. After touring the lighthouse we boarded the bus to visit these sites, Launch Complex 21 and 22.
Click Any Image for a larger viewe
Nature abounds in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This ibis hunted near the lighthouse on our way to Launch Complexes 21,22.
We passed close to the blockhouse first viewed in my post, “Lighthouse and Rockets,” and I captured this detail of the long abandoned structure. The last test launch of a Mace missle was June, 1960.
This wreckage photograph was part of my,“Lighthouse and Rockets” post. It was taken from a lighthouse portal. It is a type of cruise missle, although I cannot identify the exact type, comparing the engine, on the right, with available photographs of the “Bull Goose” and “Mace” missles developed here.
Bull Goose and Mace
Rail launched, as was the German V-1, the missles developed here were called “Bull Goose” and “Mace.” Bull Goose was a delta winged craft intended as a decoy, to appear on radar as a strategic bomber during a nuclear attack. At that time, the rails were in the open. The building here was a revampment of the site for development of the Mace. The other side of this structure is open, the launch rail pointed up from the rear. There are two launch rails, numbered 1 and 2. The building placard is “05961,” the numeral “1” designates site 1. The use of numbers of designate a site is unusual. Letters are used elsewhere on Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center.
The powerful rocket exhause was directed though these pipes. Site 1 is on the right.
Guidance or “Cruise Control”
Navigation is a crucial requirement for cruise missles. The Bull Goose used a gyroscope with no reference to surroundings. The guidance system held the launch bearings, a successful flight was completed within 115 nautical miles of the target.
If deployed, the plan was for thousands of these missles to launch 1 hour before the attack craft set out and 1 hour after. The missles were not armed, but would descend in the thousands around the targets. Similar to what the Germans did to civilians in England.
After three years and 136.5 million dollars the Bull Goose was cancelled because it could not simulate either the B-47 Stratojet or B-52 Stratofortress nuclear bomb delivery aircraft. Not a single decoy was fired in anger.
The Mace, for which this building was created, used a guidance ATRAN (Automatic Terrain Recognition And Navigation, a radar map-matching system). The map was produced on a 35 mm film strip carried on the missle, the live radar returns were “matched” against the film with course correction made for differences. The Mace was of limited usefulness due to the lack of radar maps for target areas within the Soviet Union. The Mace was deployed to Germany and South Korea until phase out in 1969.
ClickMe for the first post in this series, “Cape Canaveral Lighthouse.”
Sources of information for this post: I used information from the Wikipedia site for the key words V-1, Launch Complex 21, Launch Complex 22, Mace, Bull Goose.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 