July 24: The first rocket from the Cape

On July 24, 1950, the first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, the Bumper 8. Tonight's film: Mission to Mars (2000).

It was July 24, 1950. Cape Canaveral, Florida, a swampy, mosquito-ridden spit of land where the Army had just opened a range called the Joint Long Range Proving Ground. That day they wanted to fire the first rocket off this place, a contraption called a Bumper, built from a captured German V-2 and a tiny American WAC Corporal upper stage. The Bumper program flew eight rockets between May 1948 and July 1950, the first six from the White Sands range in New Mexico. The seventh, Bumper 7, was supposed to be the first to go from the Cape. It did not. The rocket stayed on the pad, the first pad abort in Cape Canaveral history.