(Photo courtesy of the New Mexico Museum of Space History)
Photo of V-2 No. 14 on Meilerwagen at White Sands Proving Ground,
N.M. prior to launch on November 7, 1946. This V-2 had been
assigned to the Princeton University cosmic ray experiment of
William G. Stroud, then a graduate student. Launched at 13:31
hours, it reached several hundred feet before tilting over due
to guidance failue of carbon vanes, and crashed nearby.
Princeton thereby withdrew support of relatively expensive
experimentation from which no results obtained. Wernher Von Braun,
assigned to Fort Bliss, Texs, had come to White Sands for the
launch. He is the man with the felt hat (facing camera) talking
to the man in the long leather coat (back to camera) in the left
foreground group. Photograph was taken by W. G. Stroud, now of
the Goddard Space Flight Center.