Night Test Launch

This photograph accompanied a news article today on the formation of the U.S. Space Command.  A familiar sight I readily recognized:  the night launch of a missile or spacecraft launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base (near Lompoc, California).  In an assignment during my early GAO investigative career, I spent a few months in 1965-1966 at Vandenberg, where such spectacles were frequent.  Most of the test shots were aimed “down range” toward the Kwajalein atoll in the Pacific.  Learn more about Vandenberg here.