The SPACE SITES of the
SOUTH WESTERN STATES
Having travelled a great deal around the United States, and especially the Southern States of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada and Texas, I have built up a collection of images that reflect the way the vast open spaces have been used for a variety of 'space' locations.
These include the astronomical sites - The Very Large Array; Kitt Peak; Palomar and Sunspot; the rocket test sites of White Sands and Green River; Museums at Las Cruses, San Diego and Alamogordo, the 'alien' landscapes of the Painted Desert, Monument Valley and Shiprock
- oh and, er, Roswell......
Here are just a few of the views .......
[left] The dome that houses the 200" Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar.
[right] The Griffith Observatory buildings, overlooking down-town Los Angeles, and just below the famous 'HOLLYWOOD' sign. The location has been the site for a number of movies - including Rocketeer and James Dean's Rebel Without A Cause...
There seemed to some confusion about whether James Dean was actually buried here, there is a memorial plaque at least , but this appears not to be the case. He is actually buried at Park Cemetery, Grant County, Fairmount, Indiana. (Thanks to Bruce Pivar for the correction)
[left] The McDonald Observatory, located in the Davis Mountains, south-west Texas.
Two large traditional telescopes and the new Hobby-Eberly multi-mirror telescope dominate the site on Mount Locke.
[right] Green River Missile Range, near Green River, Utah.
This was part of the White Sands Missile Range, 400 miles to the south and firing Athene missiles in that direction. It was abandoned in the 1970s.
[left] The Lick Observatory,
near San Francisco.
[right] The San Diego Aerospace Museum, San Diego, California.
There is also a restoration outpost at Gillespie Field.
[left] The Pima Air and
Space Museum in south Tucson, Arizona.
These are the YF-23 mock-ups that form the 'Gate Guards'.
(Thanks to Richard Embry for the correction
re: YF-23s!)
[right] The Pima Museum
also runs the Titan Missile Museum, the west's only remaining missile bunker
from the Cold War.
[left] 'Alien Landscape' in the Arches National Park, Utah.
This is half of the pair of arches known as 'The Spectacles'.
[right] The TR-1 (larger variant of the U-2) on display at the NASA Ames Research
Center,
near San Francisco.
[left] The Whipple Observatory, south of Tucson, Arizona.
The Gamma Ray telescope is seen in part, foreground with the MMT in the distance
on the mountain top.
[right] The Very Large Array (VLA)
on the Plains of San Augustin, near Socorro, New Mexico.
The VLA consists of 27 radio telescope dishes, each 25 meters in diameter.
They are arranged in a Y formation and can be moved, via railroad tracks,
out to mimic a 27 mile diameter dish.
(Another view of the VLA forms the background to the whole page.)
[left] Shiprock, a 1700 feet high volcanic plug near Farmington,
New Mexico.
It is a sacred site to the Navajo, who call it Tse Bitai - 'Winged
Rock'.
[right] One of the most famous views of Monument Valley in Utah
[left] Part of the The Painted Desert, Holbrook,
Arizona.
This 'alien landscape' is in the Petrified Forest National Park .
[right] Meteor Crater, near Winslow, Arizona.
Formed around 50,000 years ago by the impact of a 50 feet diameter meteorite.
[left] Biosphere 2, near Tucson, Arizona.
Initially built to research self-sustaining environments that could be used
on long-period space travel and bases on other planets. The site was developed
by the University of Arizona in 1979, with the Biosphere buildings being built
in 1987. Then Columbia University ran it for many years, but since
July 2007, it has returned to the University of Arizona , as The B2 Institute. (It was also the largest enclosed greenhouse in the world - until
the Eden Project was built in Cornwall, UK.)
(Thanks to Michelle Evans for pointing out the change of Biosphere 2's
ownership)
[right] The McMath Solar Telescope on Kitt Peak, 30 miles
from Tucson, Arizona.
Kitt Peak is home to over 25 astronomical instruments, most are optical telescopes,
including the 4 meter Mayall and some radio telescopes.
[left] Space Murals Museum, Las Cruses, New Mexico.
It was created out of the 'space mural' painted on the water tank (part of
which can be seen on the right) that shows various rocketry scenes associated
with nearby White Sands.
[right] White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
Here most of the US rocket and missile research has taken place since
WWII.
The Missile Park exhibits many of the now redundant missiles that were tested
from the Site.
White Sands National Monument, Alamogordo, New Mexico.
This out-of-this-world site is part of the whole White Sands area, and is
the world's largest concentration of gypsum
[left] The International Space Hall of Fame, Alamogordo,
New Mexico.
Situated in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains, besides the copper-tinted
cube that houses the interior exhibits, there is a space park with a Little
Joe 2 rocket.
[right] The Vacuum Tower Solar Telescope of the National Solar Observatory, located at Sunspot, near Cloudcroft, New Mexico. This is at 9,200 feet altitude on top of the Sacramento Mountains and is also is the location of the Apache Point Observatory.
[left] Although Roswell, New Mexico is perhaps best known
for the subject matter of the photograph on the right, earlier Roswell was
the location chosen by Robert Goddard in the 1930s to continue his liquid-fuelled
rocket experiments.
A reproduction of his workshops can be seen in the Town Museum
[right] What gave the town of Roswell, New Mexico its world-wide
fame.
This is all encapsulated in the UFO Museum in the Town centre.
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