Explore science in New Mexico
Science-oriented travelers will find New Mexico as tantalizing as that proverbial box of chocolates. You just never know what you're going to find! Turn to almost any physical and natural science and you’re sure to find something to whet your appetite.
Space History
New Mexico is the birthplace of America’s space program. Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, launched his liquid-fueled rockets from Roswell in the 1920s. Following World War Two, the White Sands Proving Grounds reinvented itself as White Sands Missile Range where most all of our defense and research missiles were developed and tested ... from captured German V-2 rockets to today’s Orion Constellation spacecraft. And just north of Las Cruces, in the middle of the Jornada del Muerto, Spaceport America is under construction, scheduled to launch average people on commercial flights into space by 2012.
The New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo traces human space flight from the earliest endeavors of Dr. John Stapp, who rode supersonic rocket sleds to test human endurance, to today’s Shuttle crews. It exhibits replica and actual satellites, spacesuits, and astronaut food and toiletries, and is home to the International Space Hall of Fame.
White Sands Missile Range Headquarters, just east of Las Cruces, 
maintains an outdoor missile park and museum. More than 40 missiles and rockets are on display. For more information, go to www.wsmr-history.org. Also on the missile range is Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was tested. The site is open to the public the first Saturday in April and October.
Fifty miles west of Socorro in the Plains of San Augustin sit 27 parabolic antennas comprising the Very Large Array radio telescope. Visitors are welcome to take a self-guided tour any day the visitor center is open. However, guided tours are held the same Saturdays Trinity Site is open.
Natural History
Delve into the natural sciences and you’ll glimpse into our past relationships with dinosaurs and Paleozoic animals, with the changing face of New Mexico from ancient inland seas to playas to faulting mountains. You’ll learn about our volcanos and lava flows, Permian caverns, and the world’s largest dune field of pure, white gypsum. Rockhounds find a broad assortment of minerals, semi-precious gem stones and fossils within the igneous and sedimentary rocks comprising the land.
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science informs on many of the physical and natural sciences with exceptional exhibits and examples taken from the land, including extensive dinosaur fossils.
If you’re someone who has to see it to believe it, you can roam the gypsum dune fields at White Sands National Monument, marvel at the expanse of lava flows at El Malpais National Monument, explore the 
depths of Permian caves at Carlsbad Caverns, and walk where dinosaurs once tread. There are more than 500 dinosaur footprints at Clayton Lake State Park.
You can examine the effects of wind and rain on deep deposits of volcanic ash and tuff at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, where erosion has created whimsical cone-shaped tent formations. Go to for more information. Or you can be awed by the majesty of Shiprock, the throat of an ancient volcano considered sacred by the Navajo. You can view the nearly 1800-foot-tall formation that’s off limits to hikers and climbers.
Wherever you turn, you’ll find interests for the scientifically curious - from sandstone arches to ice caves, blue holes to hot springs, from deep gorges to telescopes mapping the universe.
