A Visit to White Sands Missile Museum & Park
We’ve been to the area around White Sands National Monument and
White Sands Missile Range a few times, but never knew there was a museum
there! When Jeff discovered that before
this visit, he really wanted to check out the museum. It turns out the museum also has a missile
park, as they call it, alongside the small museum. From my perspective, the displays on the
outside were much cooler (with a few exceptions) than what was on the inside,
but then, I’m really not a history buff!
Old Fashioned Movie Camera
This really doesn’t have much to do with missiles, except that
many missile tests were filmed and this camera did the filming. In addition, this type of camera was what was
used for filming many of the movies in the 1930’s thru the 1950’s, from “Gone with
the Wind” to “Casablanca” and more!
Altho it ran automatically, it could also be hand cranked, as it was
during some of the earliest movies.
4x5 Still Camera
Still cameras are more my style rather than movie cameras, and
this camera was used for portraits of people and occasions from 1957 – 1992. There were some photos in the museum from
when JFK visited White Sands Missile Range (and testing site) about 4 months
before he was assassinated in 1963.
Think of all the history taken with this specific camera!
V-2 Missile
The V-2 Missile Program was used by Hitler and Nazi Germany
during World War II. Toward the end of
the War, Dr. Werner von Braun and most of his scientists and engineers decided
to surrender to the US. At about this
same time, a US Army unit had been assigned to find out all it could about the
V-2 Missile Program. They found a V-2
factory and about 250 V-2 missiles in various stages of production. This missile is one of the V-2 missiles that
was used by Germany during World War II.
Pershing Missiles
The rest of the missiles shown from here on, are missiles that
are on display in the (outside) missile park of the museum. Altho I’m not going to relay the history
connected with all of these (mainly because I can’t!), I thought it might be
cool to show you all some missiles that I remember hearing about as I was
growing up, or in history books.
Patriot Missile Launcher Graffiti
I sort of liked the real graffiti that our troops used on the
launcher of a different type of missile from the Pershing missiles, the Patriot
missiles. It’s the mindset that allowed
us to win the war, I guess!
Aerobee 170 Missile
Even tho I’m not really into missiles, I do admire the clean
lines of many of these – and this
one looked so clean and white against the blue sky!
Balloon Launched Decelerator Test Vehicle
I don’t really know how this was used – or why – but, I couldn’t help but
wonder if some prototype of this might not have been what the folks at Roswell
thought were aliens invading out planet several years before this specific
model was used. Here at the missile
range, we’re really not that far from Roswell, NM, site of the supposed alien
landing many years ago!
Hound Dog Missile
Yes, this missile was named for Elvis Presley’s “You Ain’t
Nothin’ But a Hound Dog” song! I guess
it shows someone in the military had a bit of a sense of humor! It is the Strategic Air Command’s first
air-launched missile designed to attack and destroy enemy air defenses, making
way for our bombers to do their jobs.
Redstone Missile
This missile was the Army’s largest surface to surface ballistic
missile, and was also used to launch first satellite and first human into
space. That human was the late Senator
John Glenn. I really like this shot of
it – I walked right up next to it
and just shot looking directly up. It
did make me a bit dizzy having my head tilted so far back!
Target Planes
These were such cute little planes, they almost looked like big
toy model airplanes. But, they served an
important purpose, and weren’t really for playing with! These planes, or similar ones, were used as
targets for the various missile tests that went on at White Sands. And, as a final bit of trivia, many of them
were coated in some sort of oil that was particularly enticing to the dogs that
they used to recover the plane parts to see exactly what the missiles did to
them!
Enjoy!
