The woman in the bubble has a great view of the Nike Tomahawk missile launch… and from the closeup of the makeshift launch pad, he was hopefully ready to duck…

My buddy Ken was working there in 1980-81 and has kept these photos for 30 years. I just digitized them, so they probably have not seen online before.

Each Nike missile was followed by a Super Arcas chaser rocket. It was a research project to launch scientific payloads up into the plasmapause. (more info)

3 responses to “Rockets in Antarctica”

  1. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    OK…getting a lot clearer now….!!

    Reply
  2. TomiTapio Avatar
    TomiTapio

    Interesting.

    Reply
  3. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    And the source of the photo has now been found! It’s US Navy photo by Paul Delsignore.

    Message from him here on flickr:

    Hi Steve, Love the work that you share. Just wanted to share with you as I was the military photographer at Siple Station the Summer of 1980-1981. I was with the Naval Support Force Antarctica in support of NSF. I was at Siple documenting the launches taking still photographs on kodachrome and filming on 16mm color. There is one image in your series that was photographed by me and it is the one of the person under the clear dome with her back to the camera watching the launch of the Nike Tomahawk.

    Here is more info on that photo and others by Paul:
    http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/history/history.html#8182

    Reply

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