Missiles and Space

  Alamogordo, New Mexico, United States
Friday, August 8, 2008

Clouds coming over the Organ Mountains

My busy day began with a visit to the White Sands Missile Range on the other side of the cloud covered Organ mountain.  There is a missile park/museum open to the public, which contained over 50 rockets/missiles tested at the facility.  You can park your car at the front gate and walk to the park/museum (1/2 block away).  The only restriction was that all photos had to be taken with the Organ mountains in the background...no pictures of the missile range was allowed.

V2 rocket

UFO?

Inside a building was housed one of the few remaining V2 rockets.  Along the wall of the building contained the history of the V2 test program conducted at White Sands.  Also several sections of the rocket's skin was removed to display the subsystems which make the rocket tick...very fascinating for a geeky engineer as myself.  Outside on display were some interesting weapons systems like the Pershing ICBM, Patriot ABM, Fat Man bomb casing and the Loon (American version of the Nazi V1 buzz bomb).  Also on display was a Redstone rocket, a similar rocket was used to launch Alan Sheppard into space.  In an attempt of mis-information on display was the Aeroshell section of the Voyager Balloon System with a placard stating that this was what people mistaken identified as flying saucers in Roswell...I am not buying it.

Challenger Memorial

John P. Strapp space park

Next stop was the Museum of Space History in Alamogordo.  Outside was the Astronaut Memorial Garden dedicated to the Challenger 7 and the John P. Strapp Air and Space Park.  On display in the Park was a F1 rocket engine (main engine used on the first stage of the Saturn 5) and sonic rocket sled...very cool.  The museum is arranged for the visitors to start on the top (4th) floor and work your way down the building.  On display, along the walk down ramps connecting the different floors, are the inductees to the International Space Hall of Fame.  There is a database search program which allows you to search for inductees along categories like country of origin and state of origin.  For the most part, on display were the standard articles which you can find in other air & space museums.  One unusual piece was the capsule which held HAM, the chimp that was launched in space.

HAM capsule

  The bottom floor was dedicated to the X prize, $10 million prize for the first successful commercial venture into space.  Although Burt Rutan, aerospace designer extrordinaire, won the prize in 2004, they have been holding an annual 2 day expo in New Mexico every October called X Prize Cup to foster future interest in space exploration.  Maybe I can get lucky and get sent on business to Las Cruces during the next expo.

P.S.  While driving through Alamogordo, I saw a sign for a Deutsche Schule (German School).  At first I thought it was a curousity, but after further thought, I realized that Alamogordo/Las Cruces/El Paso would have a heavy German population because of all the German scientist transplated/smuggled into the US after WW2 to work on the rocket program.  Next time I am in the area, I will look for a Biergarten.