Some space history, pistachios and wine

Friday, November 8
Alamogordo is home to the New Mexico Museum of Space History. Sounds like a good spot to explore! This is an interesting museum layout. You start the tour on the fourth floor and work your way down using ramps between the floors. There are outside exhibits as well.

The New Mexico Museum of Space History

Nice view from the museum. White Sands National Monument is in the distance.

Lunar rock sample from Apollo 17.

Space Shuttle simulator

Skylab mockup

 Prior to manned spaceflight they used mice and other small animals to launch into space. They also used monkeys and chimps. Outside the museum is the grave site of one of the chimps. Inside they had a display of 'Ham' and his space adventures.

Chimp restraint suite.

Mercury Primate Capsule

White Sands Missile Range was used to test a variety of space related equipment in addition to rocketry and missiles. Much of the museum was related to the historical testing at the Missile Range. Some testing found its way to civilian items such as seat belt restraints for automobiles using the rocket sled facilities located here.

Gyroscopes and guidance systems were tested here.

Compare the gyroscope on the left to the laser one on the right. Both perform the same function.

The Apollo Service Module engine testing was performed at the White Sands test facility. This engine never failed once during all the Apollo flights.

Interesting Star Trek exhibit.

Mockup of the transporter.

Elevator interior. Makes you want to ride up and down a few times just to explore the interior.

After WW II a lot of the German missiles were sent here for testing.

The wreckage of a V2.

F1 rocket engine. Used in the Saturn rocket to launch Apollo.

The business end of the F1

Lots of these Aerobee rockets were launched from White Sands.

A smaller Aerobee rocket used at White Sands.

Daisy Track. Used not so much for speed but braking. It was fired by an air cannon, then slowed using water. It measured to over 200 G's.

Air powered ram

Air compressor and storage tank.

Not all tests were successful. This is the fire damaged remnants of an engine that crashed.

Burned aluminum

Overall an interesting Museum. It focused on the role of local contributions to the space program. Something different than we have seen at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Definitely worth a visit here.

We had a bite of lunch back at the trailer then drove down the highway a couple of miles to a pistachio farm. There are actually two businesses side by side that grow and market pistachios. We stopped first at Eagle Ranch Heart of the Desert. The folks there were very friendly. We went on a tour of the farm. Turns out we were the only two to take the tour so we had our guide all to ourselves. Back in the store we tasted some pistachios. They had many flavors of course but we found the garlic and onion flavor was our favorite. We also bought some regular salted as well. Both businesses also have their own vineyards and make their own wine. Yes, we bought a couple of bottles!

A few pistachios left on the tree. Harvest takes place in August.

These trees are about 25 years old. They could stay in production for a hundred years.

The taller tree on the left is a male. They plant one male tree for every dozen or so female trees.

Final inspection is done by hand.

Primary sorting is done by machine.

Color sorter

Nuts are sorted by size using grates of varying size holes.

Aspirator

Cooking and flavoring station. Nuts are warmed for three minutes in the oven (center of pic), then they are moved to the flavoring tub where a liquid paste is added and tumbled to coat, then back into the oven for 16 minutes then out to the cooling racks.

Mixing tub for adding the flavors. (salted, chile and lime, BBQ, onion and chile, onion and garlic, etc.)

Bagging area. They have a much larger mechanical bagger. This is a smaller manual one.

They make and sell about 6,000 gift baskets a year. They were very busy  this time of year.

Storage area. They get the boxes from Walmart. They are banana boxes Walmart used to throw away.

Shipping department. They ship all over the world.

The red mark growing areas. California grow over 90% of the pistachios in North America. Southern New Mexico and northern Mexico have the right climate but the crop hasn't really caught on here. We need to eat more pistachios!!

They had some tasty wines. They grow the grapes on their farm but outsource the actual wine making.

The owners very cool International truck. (We actually met George the owner during our tour)

After spending a very enjoyable couple of hours we went down the road to McGinns Pistachio farm. We found this place not nearly as personable and the prices seemed higher as well. We only bought a couple of things here.

Worlds largest pistachio

We stopped in for an early supper at Si Senor's. Of course they had Mexican food and it was very good. We went early and by the time we left the lineup was out the door.

We headed back to the campground and caught a lovely sunset.

Saturday we'll head over to the White Sands National Monument.
.....and that was Our View From Here!