Leaving Home
Young Danny Cross couldn’t understand the telegram from the Security Commission ordering him home from college. He wondered whether it had anything to do with the reported “death” of one of America’s leading atomic scientists in a rocket explosion over White Sands. He was surprised that it was only another thorough security check and a change of security card – the vital “open sesame” to anyone living in the Alamogordo, New Mexico, of 1981.
But Danny noticed a change in the atmosphere at the proving grounds and in the communities where its scientists and technicians lived. As more atomic scientists disappeared in “rocket explosions” miles above Earth – explosions that failed to scatter debris under the sites of the accidents – the former camaraderie was replaced by an air of suspicion and foreboding.
The continuing disappearances led Danny to conclude that a highly skilled scientific group had planned, constructed and was operating a space station in secret. He suspected that even his father and mother were planning to leave Earth for an extraterrestrial life. [Synopsis of “Rockets to Nowhere” by Lester Del Rey (1954)]
Leaving Home
Young Danny Cross couldn’t understand the telegram from the Security Commission ordering him home from college. He wondered whether it had anything to do with the reported “death” of one of America’s leading atomic scientists in a rocket explosion over White Sands. He was surprised that it was only another thorough security check and a change of security card – the vital “open sesame” to anyone living in the Alamogordo, New Mexico, of 1981.
But Danny noticed a change in the atmosphere at the proving grounds and in the communities where its scientists and technicians lived. As more atomic scientists disappeared in “rocket explosions” miles above Earth – explosions that failed to scatter debris under the sites of the accidents – the former camaraderie was replaced by an air of suspicion and foreboding.
The continuing disappearances led Danny to conclude that a highly skilled scientific group had planned, constructed and was operating a space station in secret. He suspected that even his father and mother were planning to leave Earth for an extraterrestrial life. [Synopsis of “Rockets to Nowhere” by Lester Del Rey (1954)]