In the middle of the twentieth century, for the first time in history, man reached beyond his planet and began to probe. This is one of the tools with which man is creating a new age. But the age of space is also the latest chapter in a story as old as man himself.
Man first developed sounding rockets that gave him new insights into the upper atmosphere. These tools opened a window and the masking layers of the lower atmosphere, and through this window man caught glimpses of the true nature of the particles, radiations and forces in near space.
Although a sounding rocket radios back a profile of the atmosphere its flight is over in ten minutes or less. Man needs more than this, he needs first-hand data from near space and beyond. And wide stretches of space.
