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Okay, the next time I go through an airport, it's going to feel like *such* a piece of cake.
I'm in New Mexico, on a research trip for a new book. It takes place in Alamogordo, and at the White Sands Missile Range. That's where the US Space Age was born, thanks to Werner Von Braun and 300 boxcars of V-2 rockets that the Army captured at the end of WWII.
(Yes, as Tom Lehrer said, so eloquently, "Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down. It's not my department, said Werner Von Braun.")
The White Sands Missile Range takes up most of central New Mexico, and the vast majority of it is restricted and off-limits. But in the middle of nowhere, in between Las Cruces and Alamogordo, they have a Missile Park and WSMR Museum, which is free and open to the public.
I got off US-70 at the Museum exit, and encountered the first dire warning signs, saying that this was a missile range, and there might be explosions, and not to pick anything up.
Then I got to the gate where, after showing my ID, I was motioned to a parking lot in front of a concrete-block building. Inside I had to show my ID again, plus my car registration and proof of insurance. I was issued a pass to get through the gate and go to the museum.
One more checkpoint. I assumed I'd show my newly acquired pass and be waved through. But no. I was politely asked to turn off my engine, get out of the car, and open all four doors, the back hatch, and open the hood. One uniformed and armed guard peered in at my detritus while the other looked at the undercarriage of the car with a mirror on a stick.
"Do you have any weapons?" I was asked. I said no, then confessed to a bag of fireworks in the back seat, and a corkscrew.
"Those aren't weapons," the guard scoffed, and I was allowed in.
I spent three hours there, and took almost a whole pocket notebook full of notes (no photos allowed.) They have an intact V-2, which is huge and quite impressive. The Missile Park has as many pointy flying exploding things as anyone could want.
http://www.wsmr-history.org
No one asked me anything on the way out.
I'm in New Mexico, on a research trip for a new book. It takes place in Alamogordo, and at the White Sands Missile Range. That's where the US Space Age was born, thanks to Werner Von Braun and 300 boxcars of V-2 rockets that the Army captured at the end of WWII.
(Yes, as Tom Lehrer said, so eloquently, "Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down. It's not my department, said Werner Von Braun.")
The White Sands Missile Range takes up most of central New Mexico, and the vast majority of it is restricted and off-limits. But in the middle of nowhere, in between Las Cruces and Alamogordo, they have a Missile Park and WSMR Museum, which is free and open to the public.
I got off US-70 at the Museum exit, and encountered the first dire warning signs, saying that this was a missile range, and there might be explosions, and not to pick anything up.
Then I got to the gate where, after showing my ID, I was motioned to a parking lot in front of a concrete-block building. Inside I had to show my ID again, plus my car registration and proof of insurance. I was issued a pass to get through the gate and go to the museum.
One more checkpoint. I assumed I'd show my newly acquired pass and be waved through. But no. I was politely asked to turn off my engine, get out of the car, and open all four doors, the back hatch, and open the hood. One uniformed and armed guard peered in at my detritus while the other looked at the undercarriage of the car with a mirror on a stick.
"Do you have any weapons?" I was asked. I said no, then confessed to a bag of fireworks in the back seat, and a corkscrew.
"Those aren't weapons," the guard scoffed, and I was allowed in.
I spent three hours there, and took almost a whole pocket notebook full of notes (no photos allowed.) They have an intact V-2, which is huge and quite impressive. The Missile Park has as many pointy flying exploding things as anyone could want.
http://www.wsmr-history.org
No one asked me anything on the way out.
Comments
Very cool.
Other end of the scale - to check in at Southampton Airport for Alderney, we had to ring the doorbell on the desk. And on the way back they had to physically look through our hand luggage because Alderney doesn't rise to an X-ray machine (but they do have a grey doorway).
Ah the modern world!
http://www.hbook.com/blog/2006/09/now-y