Alamogordo
8 March 2010On Sunday (3/7) we visited Alamogordo, NM, home of the New Mexico Museum of Space History. It took a bit over an hour to drive from Las Cruces to Alamogordo, via Hwy 70. US-70 passes through the White Sands Missile Range and the White Sands National Monument. Like most of the Desert Southwest, the scenery is bare ground, small shrubs and trees, and then, for a brief moment, sand dunes.
The Space History museum was very good. One starts by taking the elevator to the fourth floor. Then one descends by ramps through three more floors of exhibits, ending back at the ground floor and gift shop.
We saw many models of spacecraft, artifacts of various kinds, including flags that went to the moon, flight suits, and the rather ubiquitous moon rock.
One outstanding feature is the “International Space Hall of Fame.” The inductees range from astronauts and scientists, both modern and ancient to NASA officials, whose names will be familiar to anyone who watched the various US space shots of the 60s and 70s. The earliest inductee, as near as I can tell, is Hipparchus, followed by Sir Isaac Newton. It was fun to identify folks I recognized and learn about those of whom I had never heard.
On our way back, we stopped at the White Sands National Monument. Though we didn’t leave the visitor center area, we got the sense of the place, and saw a bit of the crushed gypsum that makes up the white sands of the area. Since the sand is crushed gypsum, rather than quartz, it does not heat up in the sun, and it’s possible to sled on the dunes!
There is a museum and “Missile Park” associated with the White Sands Missile Range, but we were tired, and did not stop.
All in all, a great day.
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