Aeronautics: Astronautics

Up over tiny, bleak Wangeroog, easternmost of Germany's crumbling chain of East Frisian Islands in the North Sea, one day last week shot a five-foot model rocket plane. Up it went with a fearful roar, faster & faster, higher & higher until its noise was inaudible; higher still until the projectile was invisible; up, up, four, five, six miles—higher than any model had ever flown. Long minutes later it drifted into sight again, gliding this way & that on wings which had sprouted automatically at the peak of its ascent. Five miles from where...

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