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!