White Sands Missile Range

On the drive back to Las Cruces after spending most of the day at White Sands National Monument, a sign caught my eye, and I made an unplanned turn off of the highway towards White Sands Missile Range. This US Military Base was the site of the world's first atomic weapons tests, and is home to the White Sands Missile Range Museum, a free and very informative museum located within the base.

The museum is located within the White Sands military base, so we had to check in with the guards before driving to the museum. The base is in the desert, and from time to time, the White Sands National Monument is shut down due to missile tests. This is where the world's first atomic devices were tested, and it's still one of the military's most important missile test sites.

Here's a fun fact: in 1977, the production team from the original Star Wars visited the base to make recordings which were later used in the movie for the sounds of the TIE fighters and X-Wings. To thank the base for its cooperation, Lucasfilm presented them with this authentic Darth Vader movie prop. Pretty cool!

Inside the museum there's a lot of cool old technology that was used in the past for the missile tests.

These weird green rocks came from Trinity Site, the location of the world's first atomic detonation. They are still slightly radioactive.

President Kennedy visited the base in the 1960s, and there's a small memorial dedicated to him inside the museum. 

After looking around the museum, we wandered through the "Missile Garden".  Dozens of missiles, rockets, aircraft, and other military vehicles were on display in a dusty patch of desert, and a paved path meandered among them.

Anyone interested in military history would be thrilled to visit the base. 

Even though we were all really tired after spending most of the day out at White Sands National Monument, I dragged my friends all over the missile garden. I was really interested! It was a cool detour on our way back to the city, and we ended up spending about an hour there in total.

This is a casing of the Fat Man atomic bomb. This is the same type of atomic weapon that was detonated in Nagasaki.