For the first time an altitude of 100 mi (167 km) was reached by a test rocket. It was a V-2 rocket (No. 9), fueled with alcohol and liquid oxygen launched at White Sands, NM. This test had the first separation of nose cone. During World War II, the nose cone held a German warhead containing almost a ton of explosives. At White Sands, the Army invited government agencies and universities to use the nose cone's 20 cubic feet of space for scientific research, up to 2,000 pounds of scientific equipment, such as cameras, sensors, and on-board experiments, were carried aloft on each flight.

For a new and Improved Mode of Telegraphing and of Generating Light, Heat, and Motive Power' (U.S.No. 129,971). In 1865, Loomis had transmitted wireless signals between two mountains in Virginia using two kites flown 18 miles apart, each carrying a 600 foot wire from the ground. When he interrupted the flow of electricity from the atmosphere, through the wire, to an earth ground, a galvonometer on the other kite's wire measured a current change. He also noted dark clouds passing over his apparatus causing too much electricity to be collected by the aerials...causing him to shut down operations. This wireless communication took place many years before Marconi's experiments.