Alamogordo,
New Mexico
I took these pictures when visiting the New Mexico Museum of Space History (as it is now known) while on a vacation in late December 1997 whose ultimate destination was Carlsbad Caverns. The resulting travel diary from this trip became the "State of Mind" item entitled "Uneasy Driver."
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Telephoto view of the Sacramento Mountains from my Alamogordo lodgings.
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The main museum building.
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Entrance monument for Stapp Park with a full-scale mock-up of a Mercury spacecraft just behind it.
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Sonic Wind 1 rocket sled with which Col. Stapp performed research on the effects of mechanical force on living tissues with himself as the test subject.
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Nike Ajax, the world's first operational guided surface-to-air missile (SAM), "stands guard" over the town of Alamogordo, New Mexico in the background.
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Spent engine from a captured German V-2 rocket test fired from nearby White Sands Missile Range not long after World War II.
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Burial site of "Ham" who, on January 31, 1961 aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket, became the first chimpanzee ever fly in space.
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Little Joe II rocket used to test the Launch Escape System for the Apollo spacecraft; the largest object on display at the museum.
