Douglas Thor, Air Force Missile Test Center

Air Force Missile Test Center
Patrick Air Force Base, Florida
U. S. A. F. SM-75 Douglas THOR

The THOR is an Air Force intermediate range missile undergoing test flights over the 5000-mile range of the Air Force Missile Test center. 

Lift-Off of The Thor IRBM Discover II Rocket

This picture shows the launching of the Thor IRBM Discoverer II rocket.  The purpose of the Discoverer program is to provide a scientific data-gathering earth satellite system having the capability of ejecting a recoverable research capsule from the orbiting satellite.  Discoverer VI was launched on August 8, 1959.

Photo by U.S.A.F.

Delta No. 11, Telstar 1 and Satellite

John F. Kennedy Space Center
N.A.S.A.
Delta No 11, launched from Cape Kennedy by N.A.S.A., for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, to orbit TELSTAR 1, AT&T's experimental communication satellite.

Photo USAFMTC Photo Lab.

This postcard is unused.

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Telstar 1 launched on top of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962

NASA Echo Satellite

The NASA Echo satellite - which unfolded from its canister into a 100-foot aluminized balloon to reflect radio signals - mated to the final stage of a Thor-Delta rocket at Cape Canaveral, launch site of the Air Force Missile Test Center (U.S. Air Force Photo).

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Echo 1 was launched on August 12, 1960.

Echo 2 (not on the postcard) was launched on a Thor-Agena rocket in 1964. 

Thor-Able Star Missile, Satellite Launch

Thor-Able Star Missile shown here ready for launching from its pad at Cape Canaveral is primarily a navigational aid satellite.

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Nineteen Thor-Ablestars were launched between 1960 and 1965. 

US Space Park at the New York World's Fair 1964-65, Saturn V

U.S. Space Park
New York World's Fair 1964 - 1965
Saturn V Boat Tail -
The 52-foot tall business end of the largest launch vehicle in the world, showing the five engines which will develop 7,500,000 pounds of thrust at take-off, and send three Americans to the moon.

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The United States Space Park was a 2 acre site sponsored by NASA, the Department of Defense and the fair. Exhibits included a full-scale model of the aft skirt and five F-1 engines of the first stage of a Saturn V (shown in the postcard above), a Titan II booster with a Gemini capsule, an Atlas with a Mercury capsule and a Thor-Delta rocket. On display at ground level were Aurora 7, the Mercury capsule flown on the second US manned orbital flight; full-scale models of an X-15 aircraft, an Agena upper stage; a Gemini spacecraft; an Apollo command/service module, and a Lunar Excursion Module. Replicas of unmanned spacecraft included lunar probe Ranger VII; Mariner II and Mariner IV; Syncom, Telstar I, and Echo II communications satellites; Explorer I and Explorer XVI; and Tiros and Nimbus weather satellites.