Throughout the 1970s various experiments were launched to test hail suppression techniques as well as try to better understand the physics of summer storms in "Hail Alley" -- northeast Colorado, northwest Kansas, southeast Wyoming, and southwest Nebraska. This image shows the first test of a hail rocket at what was then Jeffco Airport in Broomfield, Colorado. Similar rockets were eventually used to seed clouds with silver iodide in an attempt to create smaller, less damaging hailstones or even rain.