The Little Joe 2 rocket was used to test the Apollo launch escape system. Photo by Michael and Allison Goldstein.
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As seasoned science-fiction fans, Allison and I approached Alamogordo’s Space Center with questions about liftoff velocity, orbital trajectories, and re-entry temperatures. Avid readers of Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, our minds were open to ideas regarding black holes, red planets, and little green men. We were, after all, enroute to one of the bastions of twentieth-century science: the NASA space program. Years of watching televised liftoffs and landings had left me an expert. I’d even had a tour of Spar Aerospace, where one of my ham radio buddies worked.
Feelings of familiarity were reinforced as we gazed at the Nike-Ajax, the world’s original surface-to-air guided missile. It was fun to realize we were right in the front yard of the White Sands Missile Range, where this bird first flew. We gasped at the size of the F-1 rocket engine and remembered the Saturn 5 launchings. This engine is huge and the Saturn used five of them. We found a model of a Mercury capsule and my astronaut wife climbed inside to try it for fit. The Mercury was used on one of the first manned-spacecraft programs. The capsules were individually designed for each astronaut’s dimensions and my wee bride rattled around in it. We talked about what it would be like circling the Earth for hours or days in this acorn cap . . . but the most pressing technical issue never crossed our minds.
One of the displays, the Little Joe II, brought the Apollo program to mind. The Little Joe was a solid-fuel rocket used to test the Apollo launch escape system. In 1969, Allison and I were panning for gold in the Fraser River (and finding some!) as we listened on the radio to Neil Armstrong, " . . . One small step for man, one giant step for mankind . . ." The Eagle had landed and there really was a man in the moon.
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A father watches while his son rolls down a sand dune at White Sands National Monument. Photo by Carla DeMarco.
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Alamogordo had its official beginning in June, 1898, when the El Paso and Northwestern Railroad, owned by Charles B. Eddy, reached the town. Mr. Eddy was very influential in the founding of Alamogordo. He planned a community with large wide thoroughfares and irrigation ditches lined with trees. The name of this community was derived from those trees. They were large cottonwoods and "Alamo Gordo" in Spanish translates to "fat cottonwood."
A large park, called Alameda, was to be located along the railroad tracks in the center of town. That park today houses New Mexico’s oldest zoo as well as a toy train depot. Almost a century old, the depot houses hundreds of model and toy trains. There is also a toy train ride of 2.2 miles around the park.
Historian Dr. David Townsend highlights an interesting feature of Eddy’s town. He was a prohibitionist and wanted no liquor in his model community. It seems his attorney, William A. Hawkins, advised him that totally prohibiting liquor was doomed to failure. Mr. Hawkins wrote an ordinance known as Block 50 Ordinance, the only block where liquor could be made and/or sold. Since Mr. Eddy sold all the lots, each deed had a provision that prohibited liquor on any lot. If there was, the lot reverted to Mr. Eddy. Needless to say, homeowners were wary about tippling in their homes. The ordinance stayed on the books until 1984.
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