Destination Unknown 23: Space the Final Frontier

Day 240

Our stay in Alamogordo was unintentional, but sometimes unplanned situations turn out to be better. Our visit here was certainly one of those situations, we are both thankful for making the decision to move away from the oil crap. As I had mentioned in my earlier posts, Lori and I really enjoyed exploring the Kennedy Space Museum in Florida. Much to our surprise, the Tularosa Basin was the birthplace of the US space program. And located high on the hills overlooking the valley was the museum of space history.

The weather is expected to be a high of nine with a cold wind, making it feel below zero. A perfect day to spend exploring a museum. Alamogordo is a small town making it a quick trip. As we arrived we noticed the museum had an outside display of various rockets, radars and a German Panavia Tornado fighter jet, donated by the German Airforce that had been stationed at the Holloman Airforce base some time ago.

After exploring the outside display, we headed indoors. At the ticket office we were informed the planetarium, located right beside the museum, was about to play a star show in fifteen minutes. Lori being a fan of planetarium star shows jumped at the offer, and we headed straight over.

The star show was guided by an older gentlemen who certainly lacked enthusiasm throughout the presentation 😴. Now I have to say, I did my best to keep listening to the presentation to show support for the choice to attend the show. At the end of the show, I decided to keep quiet about my opinion in concern of stepping on Lori’s enthusiasm if she enjoyed it. To my relief, Lori turned to me and said “that was a half-hour we will never get back”. From here, we headed back to the museum.

German Panavia Tornado fighter.

Burial site of Ham the Astrochimp, with two banana offerings.

On January 31, 1961. Ham flew a suborbital flight on the Mercury-Redstone mission. Ham’s name is an acronym for the lanratroy that prepared him for his historic mission. The Holloman Aerospace Medical Centre. After the mission Ham lived a peaceful civilian life at the Washington National Zoo and then the the North Carolina Zoo where he passed away peacefully at the age of twenty five.

Museum overlooking the valley.

Outside rocket and radar display.

X-7A Lockheed test vehicle for the ramjet engine for anti-aircraft missiles. Maximum speed Mach 4.31 (2881 mph)

Remnants of the tail section of a German V-2 (Vengeance Weapon) test fired at the missile range.

Remnants of the engine section of the V-2. The development of the German V-2 program cost $3 billion (1944 values) and were more costly than the US Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb ($1.9 billion)

This rocket is called Little Joe 2 and was used to test the Apollo Launch Escape System and verify performance of the command module parachute.

F-1 Rocket engine designed by North American Aviation, now The Boeing Company.

The power generated by five of F-1engines on the Saturn V rockets was equivalent to 190 giga watts, almost twice the peak electrical power consumption of France…. Or over 90 times the peak power produced by the Hoover dam. I guess Doc Brown and Marty Mcfly should have used one of these on the delorean instead of a lightning bolt.

The MIM-3 Nike Ajax was the worlds first operational surface-to-air missile. In service from 1954 to 1963.

Trinity Stones. The first explosion of an atomic bomb melted the silica around ground zero, turning it into small shards of radio active glass.

Model of the Russian Sputnik Satellite.

Apollo Lunar Sample Return container. The Apollo astronauts returned with 842 pounds of lunar rocks and soil to earth in “rock boxes”

Activity Centre. Your only job was to land the space shuttle safely on the runway and bring it to a stop. After destroying two shuttles, NASA asked me step down.

Ham the Astrochimps capsule.

Hams Uniform.

The museum had a large display of food used over the years for space travel. We felt the Pepsi could easily be mistaken for the shaving cream.

Russian news paper headlining the first astronaut to reach space.

One section of the museum was dedicated to Gene Roddenberry. His vision has inspired countless people to look to the stars and begin dreaming of how we can make it into space. As noted, everything that has ever been created was once just an idea and dream.