Qualla: New Mexico Museum of Space History

New Mexico Museum of Space History: Introduction

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AllenS, Public domain. On a slope overlooking the Tularosa Basin, a golden cube rises from the desert - the New Mexico Museum of Space History, keeper of artifacts from humanity's leap beyond Earth. This is fitting ground for such a museum. The basin below witnessed the first American rocket tests, the birth of missile technology, and experiments so dangerous they could only be conducted far from civilization. Buried in front of the museum's flagpoles lies Ham, the chimpanzee who rode a Mercury capsule into space in 1961, proving that a primate could survive the journey before any human tried.

Image: AllenS | Public domain

New Mexico Museum of Space History: A Mayor's Cosmic Vision

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AllenS, Public domain. In 1973, Dwight Ohlinger, the former mayor of Alamogordo, visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and came home with an audacious idea. If baseball deserved a hall of fame, surely spaceflight did too - and where better to build it than Alamogordo, whe...

Image: AllenS | Public domain

New Mexico Museum of Space History: Ham the Astrochimp

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AllenS, Public domain. Before John Glenn orbited Earth, before Alan Shepard rode Freedom 7 into the history books, a 37-pound chimpanzee named Ham proved the mission was survivable. On January 31, 1961, Ham launched from Cape Canaveral aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, experiencing six minutes of weightlessne...

Image: AllenS | Public domain

New Mexico Museum of Space History: The Sonic Wind and Murphy's Law

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stilfehler, CC BY-SA 4.0. The John P. Stapp Air and Space Park, an outdoor exhibit area adjacent to the museum, holds artifacts from an era when rocket scientists tested equipment - and human endurance - with terrifying directness. The centerpiece is Sonic Wind No. 1, the rocket sled that Colonel John Pau...

Image: Stilfehler | CC BY-SA 4.0

New Mexico Museum of Space History: From IMAX to Interstellar

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stilfehler, CC BY-SA 4.0. The museum complex includes the Clyde W. Tombaugh IMAX Theater and Planetarium, named for the astronomer who discovered Pluto. The facility's dome serves double duty as a planetarium projector screen and an IMAX theater, screening films about space exploration daily. Tombaugh, wh...

Image: Stilfehler | CC BY-SA 4.0

New Mexico Museum of Space History: The Buried Ataris

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AllenS, Public domain. In 2014, the museum became custodian of one of gaming's strangest artifacts. In September 1983, Atari secretly buried millions of unsold game cartridges - including copies of the notorious E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game - in the Alamogordo landfill. The burial became urban legen...

Image: AllenS | Public domain