Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico

Holloman Air Force Base sits on the edge of the White Sands Missile Range, near Alamogordo, and uses some of the Range for practice bombing, and many other things. Holloman is an unusual Air Force Base, with a history of space program research and stealth projects. Holloman is home to a stealth fighter (F-117) unit, and the only F-117 training unit in the country. Features at Holloman include a biological laboratory with a complex known as the Advanced Primate Research Biocontainment Facility, part of the legacy of the base's work preparing the "astrochimps" for pre-manned space flight. Some of the largest and fastest test tracks are located here, for subjecting people and objects to rapid acceleration and deacceleration tests. (It was here where Colonel Stapp rode a rocket sled to 632 miles per hour, becoming the Fastest Man on Earth, and where he was subjected to 40 times the force of gravity by stopping in 1.5 seconds.) High altitude manned balloon tests were performed here as well, in preparation for space flight. More recently, a German luftwaffe training facility has been developed here. The base also operates the worlds most sophisticated radar cross-section facilities, RATSCAT, used to develop stealth weapons systems, located on White Sands.