New Mexico Museum of Space History

 

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Chuck B.

Wilmington, NC

1/20/2008

If you or any of your family are space enthusiasts this is a museum you have to see. Due to the proximity of White Sands this museum has acquired a variety of unusual space hardware. Start with the outdoor exhibits such as the rocket sled, V2 rocket (Germanies ballistic missile during WWII - this hardware is over 60 years old) and the Little Joe II rocket used to test the Apollo launch escape system. Indoors you will find a wealth of exhibits large and small. Starting with the pioneers of modern rocketry such as Robert Goddard (one of my childhood heroes, the inventor of the liquid fueled rocket and the rocket propelled grenade  - RPG) and Werner Von Braun (another of my childhood heroes - what can I say I was a strange kid). The rocket engine area is really cool, you can view these speculator pieces of engineering and ingenuity (remember these are handling fluids that are volatile, below freezing, and at high rates), I just love this kind of real hardware. There are even some real strange stuff such as the test dummies first used on the rocket sleds to determine mans capabilities and fragilities at high speeds/acceleration. A recent new exhibit has opened up, which I have not seen, is the X-Prize and X-cup (competitions to use private money to commercialize space.) There is also an IMAX theater, planetarium, and a decent gift shop. If you are passing through on your to say the Carlsbad Caverns then be sure and print out a map.

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