This maybe one Tiger might be interested in or could speak on?
In the Australian Outback, there's a small 'new' township called Woomera (named after an Aboriginal Spear 'thruster' to increase the range of a thrown spear), built in the early 1950's.
It was jointly developed shortly after World War 2, buy the UK and Australian Governments. The UK Government were clearly concerned at the new war weapon of Missiles and them being tipped with a Nuclear Warhead.
To develop and test the Missile that the UK Gov of the day wanted to build, they needed a suitable test range, preferable something of a similar distance from, oh, let's just say London to Moscow,,,,
There was an area in Canada that was briefly examined, but then it was settled that they'd do this in co-operation with the Aust Government.
Enter Woomera.
It was and though shortened a few times over the years, still is the largest Rocket Test Range in the World, about 2500 miles (4000 km) in it's day. Originally, the Range went from Woomera to Christmas Island.
There was great secrecy for a very long time about what went on at Woomera and much of it to this day is still kept that way, though there are some areas that have been opened up to the Public and also talked about in public arenas.
Apparently when the Russians learnt of what was going in there, they turned around half of their Nuclear Arsenal away from locations across the US to Woomera - they wanted to blow it off the Map !! They had their 'Fishing Trawlers' constantly off the SA Coast,,,,,
Despite common myth, no Nuclear Testing was ever done at Woomera itself, though there were 2 such sites not that far away (about 300 miles), both on the 'Range'.
It also allowed Australia to briefly enter the 'Space Race' and was in fact the 3rd Country, behind the USSR and US to do so. In fact, our Satellite WRESAT though no longer functioning, is still in orbit to this day - another bit of useless space junk !
The SA State Library are about to open an Exhibit about Woomera (thanks for the reminder Pete 
), hence what's prompted me to post this here;-
http://www.slsa.sa.g...?u=1016&c=44738
It's also because of Woomera and the Rocket Range that we have such wonderful tracks to travel and explore across much of our Outback.
About 10 years back, through an American Space 'Club' of which I was a member, I was lucky and privileged enough to receive an Invitation to spend 4 days at 'Woomera' to celebrate 60 years of the Range, it was a most remarkable experience that I'll carry with me forever. It made me very proud to be an Australian when I found out somel that was done and developed there, much after the UK pulled out (soon after it all kicked off), but also very deeply disappointed in our successive Governments that they have never followed through or allowed the range to flourish as it should have naturally done so.
In it's 'hey day' there was up to 8+ Rocket Launches a day (there were many many launch facilities dotted all over the site).
One of the smaller launch facilities still in use
One of the Big 'ELDO" Launch Facilities in the hey day;-
and as it is today
Static Display of one of the medium sized rockets
'Mission Control' Building
and Inside,,,,
Joint Aust / US 'Spy' Facility that's now mothballed
and Inside the 'Golf Ball'
Edited by Moke Spider, 23 August 2017 - 10:37 AM.
NASA is flying a couple of F-18's at supersonic speeds for a couple of weeks to experiment on reducing the sonic boom on future supersonic airplanes.
