108
White Sands Missile Range Museum, White Sands Missile Range, NM
32° 23′ 9.06″ N, 106° 28′ 42.53″ W
Operation Paperclip
In 1944, the U.S. Army chose over 8,000 square kilometers in New Mexico to be the main site for U.S. rocket testing. The site became known as the White Sands Proving Ground, and in 1945 rocket experiments began. On July 16, 1945, the area was used for the first test of a nuclear bomb (see Chapter 106). Over in Europe, the U.S. was running Operation Paperclip to capture and offer jobs to as many valuable Nazi scientists as possible. One group, under Wernher von Braun, was transported to White Sands along with tonnes of missiles and equipment to help jump-start U.S. missile technology (see also page 71).
In 1946 the first V-2 rocket was launched at White Sands, and by the end of the year the German scientists working alongside U.S. service personnel had launched tens of V-2s across the White Sands Missile Range. The U.S. also tested versions of the V-1, renaming it the Loon.
The missile range still exists today and is in active use. Despite that, there’s a museum of missile history with multiple exhibits just inside the range, including an outdoor missile park with many types of missiles on display. Notable missiles include the Loon, a newly restored V-2, a Patriot antimissile battery, Pershing I and II nuclear missiles, and a Sidewinder air-to-air missile.
There are also cruise missiles (missiles that don’t follow a ballistic trajectory), including the Hound Dog (from 1960). And there are non-military missiles such as the Aerobee 170 and Aerobee Hi, which were used to carry experiments into the upper atmosphere and space to research.
Unmanned aircraft are covered by the exhibition of various drones—there’s a Firebee BQM-34A rocket-propelled drone, the MQM-107D Streaker that was used until the late 1990s for target practice, the QH-50 DASH drone helicopter, and the supersonic XQ-4.
There are also displays of equipment needed for tracking missiles, such as radar antennas and high-speed camera systems.
Inside the museum are displays of missile technology including the pumps, gyroscope, and rocket motor from a V-2, a Stinger shoulder-launched missile, a special slide rule (see page 138) for doing quick rocket trajectory calculations, and the ground control equipment used for drones.
Practical Information
Details about the White Sands Missile Range Museum are available at http://www.wsmr-history.org/. It can easily be seen at the same time as the Trinity Test Site (Chapter 106).
