Trinity Nuclear Test Site Open House – Saturday, April 6
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wsmr.army.mil
https://public.nrao.edu/event/vla-spring-open-house-2/2019-0...
[0] https://www.space.com/event-horizon-telescope-black-hole-ann...
I could be wrong? Perhaps they’re very fast?
they only pick them up and move them 4 times a year.
I generally avoid Vegas like the plague, but if I ever go back, that's on the top of the list to visit again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man
"Little Boy" was the code name of the nuke dropped on Hiroshima
I'm really glad I went, but it's more of an intellectual pilgrimage than anything else.
*Was in Socorro myself, honestly not even sure it's worth the drive from Albuquerque unless you're a real atomic bomb fanatic.
Socorro’s got odd and unexpected history throughout it, I found.
And on the pedestal these words appear: 'I am become death, the destroyer of worlds' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The glassified green sands stretch far away
I've been to Trinity and to Hiroshima. Both shake me from someplace deep.
By the way, if you head east on 380 through the Valley of Fires, there was a soda fountain in Carrizozo where the proprietor was a little boy when the test went off. He remembers the blast, which could be heard from the city. I just did a quick check and it may be closed now. He was getting up in age and it'd be sad if he passed.
- White Sands National Monument (spectacular otherworldly landscape)
- Cloudcroft and the surrounding nature up in the mountains, including an old train trestle on a cliff
- Sunspot solar observatory
- Ruidoso, which has skiing the right time of the year
- Three Rivers Petroglyph site, well-preserved rock art created by native tribes on a hill a few centuries ago
- Valley of Fire, a dried up lava flow
- Carlsbad Caverns, a massive cave and national park
EDIT: Forgot to mention very dark and starry skies up in the mountains!
I'm currently camping in the mountains close to White Sands. The weather is great and the area is beautiful.
NM is definitely underrated, but it’s hard for me to not see some problems of course. It’s got problems from being remote and sparsely populated. It’s a desert with plenty of water issues/disputes. It’s got good and bad history. Plenty of things to see and do that are beautiful to behold or experience. But I’m even more glad it’s not ruined with overpopulation.
Even better is to do a giant road trip circuit between the northern parts of New Mexico abd Arizona, and southern parts of Utah and Colorado. You can also easily hit San Juan National Forest/Mesa Verde and Durango, Moab and Arches/Canyonlands/Capitol Reef, Escalante, Zion, and the Grand Canyon without too much driving between them all.
If you keep talking up your state and telling people how great it is it will rapidly take a turn for the worse.
Colorado used to be a lot like you describe then it achieved a "brand image" as a vacation spot, after about a generation of people retiring to their vacation spot and people moving there because "it's beautiful, why not" and the state is in a tailspin (being an early adopter on weed probably didn't help but that's beside the point). Now the cost of living is skyrocketing and Denver/Boulder seem to be hell bent on recreating all the bad (bad for people who aren't wealthy, that is) decisions of a certain west coast state.
Economy, people, natural environment, no place can be highly favorable to all three. You can make big bucks and enjoy nature all you want in CA but the rest of your life will be a rat race. You can live a nice life and make good money in some places on the east coast but god help you if you want to get outdoors once in awhile. There are still many highly rural states where you can enjoy nature and have a nice life but you won't be making big bucks there.
I understand that some people may want to drive tourism business in their state. As someone who grew up in a place where tourism is a major industry I believe it will destroy your culture over time. I understand that you're not advocating people move to NM, just saying it's a nice place to visit but that's the first step and I'm not gonna re-write my entire comment to be specific to that case.
I would personally move back to New Mexico, but I wouldn't paint a rosy picture of it. I like the culture, I'm sure it's not everyone's cup of tea. I definitely grew up around a lot of animosity from family members about New Yorkers moving to Rio Rancho, so it's nothing new:
https://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/06/business/rio-rancho-s-tan...
That said, New Mexico has been able to east/west coast gentrification to a minimum (Luckily most people end up going to Phoenix or Vegas instead)
On tourism - tourism is pretty much destroying the world, probably thanks to instagram. The west is susceptible but much of it is protected by virtue that many interesting parts are more than 3 hours from a major domestic or international airport. August is fucked though, partially because of the long European holiday, never do anything in August.
Though, that's his opinion. I visited with my parents when I was much younger. We went to Taos Valley and I remember it was a really beautiful place. Ski during the day and jump in the pool at night.
If it's any indication, I did move back to Albuquerque in 2009 to try to find a job after graduating with a degree in Physics - because I did miss the culture and the place, even though I loved Utah too, but I couldn't make it work at the height of the recession. Utah wasn't much better - I had to take a part time mobile app QA position, but more of my adult friends were there.
There are pure science jobs available at Los Alamos but they can be a bit hard to come by, I would consider moving back to Santa Fe for the right position.
I would also say that Albuquerque does have my favorite weather. Winter shows up but it's not obnoxious, same with summer. September is the best month for a nice trip
https://public.nrao.edu/event/vla-spring-open-house-2/2019-0...
The Trinity site was compelling from a historical standpoint but it's really just a patch of desert in a missile range. There was small tent set up with information in addition to the markers. Most of the time for the experience was waiting in a car on a road in the middle of nowhere and speculating about occasional bits of debris in the distance.
Both are worthwhile but I'd go for the VLA.
Other than that the exciting time is when they are moving the dishes (they are on tracks, and they move the dishes closer together / further apart). I'm trying to look up the dates, but I can't find them on their calendar now.
That said. The Trinity site is some plaques, a shack and New Mexico scrub land; the VLA is (if in a close configuration) a dramatic sight, some plaques and New Mexico scrub land AND if it's an open house: the chance pick the brains of operations people.
That's the big difference, open house VLA you can talk to people who's lives are the VLA; Trinity you can talk to people who volunteered to keep tourists from doing anything stupid.
My first visit to NM was on an ISEF-sponsored trip in 1983, when the science fair was held in Albuquerque. We didn't visit the Trinity site (or at least I didn't), but we got to play with a CO2 laser at Sandia Labs, chill out on the couches encircling the Cray 1 at Kirtland AFB, and watch the NMIMT 'Terminal Effects' group blow some stuff up in the desert. (Un)fortunately the demo was conducted with conventional explosives only, but it was still fun to watch.
There was also a gigantic wooden trestle spanning a canyon in the same area, wrapped in giant Helmholtz coils for testing aircraft under various EMP conditions. I imagine that's all done via simulation these days.
When I went I could still see some trinitite, the green glass from bomb surface sand melting.
Also not far away is Roswell with a UFO museum. For the most part it is an oil production and immigrant town.
Along the way you pass through Lincoln County where Billy the Kid met his end. There are various legendary events there.
Particularly amusing are the ranks of bleachers sitting out in the middle of the desert (so people can watch weapons tests).
That said, I was amused watching parents handing geiger counters to their kids and telling them to run around and yell when the counter started to click more frequently.
> It is now illegal to take the remaining material from the site
You should not be removing anything from government property or parks. Leave no trace.
Odd sentiment.
"Leave no trace" wasn't quite the right thing to say since you're going there to see human traces but the sentiment is clear.
They will argue that no such bomb could ever have been made, and that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were false flags, or some bullshit along similar lines. Or worse, they will argue that nukes are just bigger versions of ordinary bombs, perfectly kosher for use in any scenario that would otherwise justify dropping bombs on the enemy of the day.
So an argument could be made that we should light one off in the desert every Fourth of July and sell tickets, just to pre-empt this particular subculture of stupidity.
Maybe there are small tactical devices that would be clean enough, if detonated far enough above the ground. But I doubt it.
Keep in mind that the idea is to avoid setting off even more of them in anger. Right now it's considered deeply taboo to drop a nuclear weapon on an enemy. In another generation, a nuclear conflict will be considered drastic but nothing all that horrific. The generation after that will have fewer inhibitions. The generation after that will have fewer members.
I've often thought that a suitable airburst would be a great climax for large fireworks displays. But then, there's the EMF. Sigh.
I would've agreed with you until relatively recently. Lately, those people seem to gain more political power over the rest of us in every election.
I'm not that serious about setting off nukes to educate, impress, or otherwise remind them, though. For one thing, there's absolutely no reason to believe it would work.