Moments of Enchantment; 62; Tularosa Basin – White Sands

Moments of Enchantment, brought to you by the New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs and 770 K -O -B Radio. Hundreds of millions of years ago in New Mexico's Tulerosa Basin, a massive upheaval raised the land into a mound containing layers of minerals. Fault lines in the Earth gave way. Rain's washed minerals down from the mountains, the wind blew them across the land, leaving only white sands of gypsum, more in a moment. July 16, 1945. Dawn breaks over the remote and pristine track of white sands in the Tulerosa Basin. A group of men huddle over a control board at the count of ten and explosion. The sky is ablaze as if from the light of a thousand suns, twenty miles away building sway in shake. A huge mushroom cloud takes shape in the air. Man had split the atom, creating the atomic bomb, and the world would never be the same. Other major events of the space age occurred at white sands. Under the supervision of Werner Von Braun, the V2 long -range

ballistic missile was assembled and launched on the white sands missile range. NASA selected white sands to test the Apollo command and service modules. The little Joe II rocket made its first flight for the Apollo program at white sands. In 1982, white sands made history again when the Space Shuttle Columbia landed on the Northrop strip. It was that landing that marked the end of the third flight of the shuttle and proved that the craft could land under many different conditions. To learn more about the white sands missile range, visit the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo. Moments of Enchantment brought to you by the New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs. For Moments of Enchantment, I am David Griffin.