 What is the importance of White Sands?
Once every two hours, the artificial satellite looped completely around the planet, watching what went on below. Outside its bright steel hull was the silence of the interplanetary vacuum; inside, in the hospital ward, Lieutenant Alice Britton clutched at the sheets of her bed in pain, then relaxed as it faded away. But as soon as we get within radio range of White Sands, I'll ask them to send up an emergency rocket with an incubator. Major Banes was in the Communications Center a full five minutes before the coastline of California appeared on the curved horizon of the globe beneath them. Colonel Gates, the O.B. man, was supposed to come up for the delivery in September, so when White Sands contacted us, they said he was coming immediately."
 It's where the base is that can send help
 It's where the only doctors who can offer advice are stationed  It is where Lt. Britton's family lives  This is where Lt. Britton wants to start her family  It's where the base is that can send help