Rocco Petrone arrives in Huntsville, Alabama. He is a 25-year-old US Army captain with a background in mechanical engineering, certified by the prestigious MIT, and a passion for rockets, cultivated at West Point. In Huntsville, he meets Wernher von Braun and Kurt Debus. In 1952, they reconnoiter Cape Canaveral, Florida: a desolate land where the only living things at the time are a caravan of gypsies and countless mosquitoes. Petrone will be given the challenging task of designing and building the launch pads. The first launch will take place on August 20, 1953: a Redstone. Rocco will then be appointed responsible for all control and launch operations. Later, Rocco Petrone will also be involved in the design of the Nike surface-to-air missiles, designed to shoot down large flocks of enemy bombers. They were installed after the war in military bases such as Base Tuono, near Trento, Italy, and were sometimes even armed with small nuclear warheads.
