The Secrets Of Woomera

Not very long ago Woomera had only one meaning—it described an aboriginal tool which when applied to the end of a spear could be used as an aid to throwing. Today any Australian who hears the spoken word applies it not to the aborigines but to the mysteries of space science, for since 1947 Woomera has meant the Long Range Weapons Establish ment in South Australia.

THIS gigantic undertaking, staffed and directed by Britains and Australians sharing a financial load which has already been more than £ 100-million, is a happy working partnership, yet even the barest facts of it have been singularly hard to come by. For Woomera has also meant Security.

Australians have known nothing more than that Woomera has tied up thousands of square miles of arid country; that rockets are regularly fired there to God-knows-where and that somewhere in the area boffins track satellites and other odd pieces of hardware orbiting the earth.

Now, for the first time we can read the story of Woomera, its growth, its scientific achievements, its general anatomy and discover for ourselves how 4,500 souls live in this gigantic open-air laboratory where each person and each facility is main tained at two-and-a-half times the cost of its equivalent in an Australian capital city.

Australian author Ivan Southall, a war-time DFC winner and known in recent years for his books for boys, does it most creditably in Woomera.

It’s a big book well illustrated and containing even detailed diagrams of the range and its layout and of Woomera village itself.

You Need the Index An index draws the threads together for the fact-seekers—a most necessary index, for in his arrangement of chapters Southall sometimes sacrifices clarity for the sake of continuity. He jumps from one period of time to another as the mood takes him. Yet the facts are all there—more facts than most readers would expect.

Southall says that as early as 1953 the Americans were watching Woomera closely and by 1957 it was agreed that “there wasn’t a range in the Western world better equipped or better managed, that conducted a major programme on fewer staff”.

By 1960 the US had installed millions of dollars worth of equipment there.

Its geographic position and its excellence have made Woomera in dispensable to the West and without

it the conquest of interplanetary space would be far more hazardous and difficult. (WOOMERA. Published by Angus and Robertson. 37/6.)

Homesteaders go to shelter when Long Tom goes up from Woomera.