A Freudian Dream

Visiting at Ted and Connie's place. Ted and Connie are long time friends of ours. They recently bought a house here in Las Cruces, where we parked Smokey for a few days.




Their house is Santa Fe style, with low, clean lines. Verrry nice indeed.


Our first stop yesterday was at White Sands Natl. Monument. A nicely designed visitor center (Santa Fe style also).

This area was a large sink for surrounding water flow in the past. The water contained large amounts of gypsum, which crystallized out as the water evaporated. The large crystals were broken down by erosion, until they formed into this soft, white sand-like substance.


The wind formed the sand into dunes. The yucca plant below is actually 33 ft. tall! It grows through 30 ft. of sand from the soil, until it reaches the surface - only 3 ft. sticking-out.




John & Mimi in a classic pose





Further east is Alamogordo and a space museum operated by New Mexico State University.





Outside is a small "missile park", while the building houses four stories of exhibits.



One exhibit was "Little Joe", a large rocket that looks like it was made out of corrugated garbage can metal. Actually, it was. Originally designed to test the escape tower of the Apollo capsule, it flew several times successfully. Looks like something I built as a kid in my back yard.





This is the control module from a German V-2 rocket. Before computers, this cam-like mechanism controlled all the operating functions of the rocket. As the cam turned on a timer, each cam activated a separate switch at a different time as it rotated. Since the Germans knew exactly how far London was from their rocket base at Petameundu, the launch site, all functions are preprogrammed into the camshaft manually. Evil geniuses!





Monkey business! The capsule and space suit of one of the first chimps shot into space. The capsule looks suspiciously like a coffin. The chimp probably thought so also, as it was strapped in.





The first guided missile flown by the U.S., called the Gargoyle.




Our last stop was at the White Sands Rocket Testing Facility. They have an extensive "missile park" there also. Getting on the base was a pain, having to provide extensive documentation abut the car, license, insurance, etc. Then they thoroughly searched the car, including looking underneath the underside with a mirror. White Sands is an active military research center.





This poorly exposed picture provides an ominous silhouette of a mobile ground-launched nuclear missile. The sign said it helped win the Cold War by forcing the Ruskies to the negotiating table because they could not counter its deadliness. Hummm





The Patriot is a defensive missile system used with some success in the first Iraq war.





Fat boy meets a fat man. A model of Fat Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Japan in WWII.

This one didn't do anything when I whacked it with my foot! Typical American-made junk.



Mimi was asked to track a missile with this apparatus as it was test fired (Not)



A nasty sand / dust storm blew up as we were touring the missile park. Taking cover in the car, we used the storm as an opportunity to drive around the base, doing a little exploring under cover of the dust. No pictures are allowed besides the missile park, and we didn't want to push our luck, so we didn't take any. One of the signs on the base was for [The Arts and Crafts Center]. Really! I wonder if they were working on needle point or pastel paintings. Another sign, though, was for survivability analysis. The old folk song, "Where have all the flowers gone?" kept running through my mind. Shiver!

Hee hee, except I couldn't resist this one picture. A veerry interesting object in the back part of the base. Shhh! Don't tell any one about it. But, it looks like a .... UFO !!
Humm, I wonder who is actually operating this base?



Oops, I have to go now. There's a knock at the door...