The Center for Land Use Interpretation

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Military, Nuclear and R&D Land Use In New Mexico
Summaries From Some CLUI Site Characterizations

Cannon Air Force Base
Cannon Air Force Base, located in eastern New Mexico, is a 4,500 acre facility which has a population of over 10,000 people. Established in 1942, the base is now home for tactical fighter wings.

Holloman Air Force Base
Holloman Air Force Base sits on the edge of the White Sands Missile Range, near Alamagordo, and uses some of the Range for a practice bombing. Holloman is home of a stealth fighter (F-117) group, and is considered one of the more vital Air Force Bases in the country. Traffic between Holloman and the black-budget test facility at Nevada's Groom Lake, run by the Air Force and the CIA, is reportedly heavy. There is also a biological laboratory on Holloman, which includes a complex known as the Advanced Primate Research Biocontainment Facility.

Fort Bliss
Fort Bliss is an Army training facility and home of an artillery brigade and an armored calvary regiment. Though headquartered in El Paso, Texas, the base includes a 1.1 million acre range, most of which is in New Mexico and shares a border with the Army's White Sands Missile Range.

Roswell Army Airbase
Roswell Army Airbase is now a municipal air field, but is famous for being associated with a legendary UFO crash. It was here, in 1947, that material from an alleged crashed alien craft was brought and examined by several people before the incident was hushed-up and the material was taken away by military authorities. Several witnesses claim to have handled the metallic material, and stated that it posessed very unique elastic properties. There are also witnesses that attest to seeing injured alien beings at the crash site.

In 1994, partially responding to the continuing barrage of expensive Freedom of Information Act requests from UFO researchers, the Air Force released previously classified documents that they say explains the event. According to the documents, the object that crashed there was part of Project Mogul, a program to monitor the atmosphere for vibrations that might indicate a Soviet nuclear test. As part of this project ballons with sensors and metallic reflectors were to be deployed from points around the nation. The tendency of the ballons to come down to earth in unsecured locations, like the one that crashed near Roswell, was part of what led to the projects discontinuation in 1950. Back To Top

National Radio Astronomy Observatory
In the plains of Saint Agustin, west of Socorro, is the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, one of the most powerful radio telescopes in the world. The VLA consists of 27 82-foot radio dishes that can be moved on tracks to cover an area as large as 20 by 20 miles. The antennas are linked together to form a single image of the radio source being studied. The facility was constructed from 1974 to 1982 by the National Science Foundation. As part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), information from the VLA is combined with that from other NRAO facilities at Green Bank, West Virginia, Tucson, Arizona, and the main office at Charlottesville Virginia.

For a typical experiment the dishes are configured to track a distant astronomical entity, one which emits radio signals, for a designated amount of time, from several hours to several days. These signals are picked up by the collector dishes, amplified and transmitted to the control building through underground wave guides. The amplifiers in each dish are cooled to -427 degrees F, just slightly warmer than absolute zero, to reduce the amount of noise they produce. The wave guides are precision-made pipes 60 millimeters wide which steer the cosmic radio waves to the computer processors with minimal loss or distortion. The signals are then converted into data and are stored in computers. The experimenters, who have usually waited for years for this brief window of data-collection, take the computerized data, stored on magnetic tapes, back to their institution to be analyzed and interpreted for months and even years into the future.

The VLA is also part of the Very Long Baseline Array antenna, composed of ten 82-foot collectors spread out across the USA from the Virgin Islands to Hawaii, working together to form a radio antenna 5000 miles in diameter. Information from this configuration is collected from each site on magnetic tape and sent to the Array Operations Center at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, in Socorro.

However, to most UFO enthusiasts, the release of this information is seen as just another attempt by the government to conceal the truth, and has only deepend their convictions about a continued government cover-up of the alien presence. There is a UFO museum in Roswell which continues to cater to the thousands of faithful who make the pilgrimage to Roswell every year. Back To Top

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is the first major nuclear waste disposal facility to be built in the United States, and so far also the only one. This Department of Energy (DOE) facility east of Carlsbad, New Mexico, is designed to only test and prove the viability of the disposal of nuclear waste in a geologic repository, and is not being built to be a final disposal site (though it is generally believed that once waste is located there that it will stay for quite some time). The Plant was constructed in the early 1980's and has been largely finished since 1988. Constructed at this facility is a mile long corridor 2,150 feet underground, off of which are several chambers for tests and interim waste storage. There are 30 or so support structures at the surface, in a secure zone covering over 10,000 acres.

WIPP is awaiting environmental and political approval, before accepting its first shipment of trans-uranic (TRU) waste. All the waste destined for WIPP is from other DOE and military sites (none of it is commercial nuclear waste--that is slated for Yucca Mountain, Nevada), and is comprised of mostly irradiated laboratory material, such as gloves, protective clothing, and other disposable test equipment. 

The repository is built in a salt dome (a massive underground salt deposit) as it was assumed that this type of geologic structure would be more stable than any other. In this type of underground environment, the salt is expected to slowly encroach on the waste material, surrounding it and isolating it from the atmosphere and ground water. Studies so far have both supported and criticized this hypothesis, and many believe that the waste could breach this entombment within the 24,000 years needed for the plutonium contamination to decay to safe levels. In any event, it is proving difficult to anticipate conditions that far into the future, as evidenced by the results of the team of experts that was assembled by Sandia National Lab to design a "keep out" sign for WIPP that would remain legible for 10,000 years. Back To Top

New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, also called New Mexico Tech, is a technical university and is part of the state university system. Though enrollment is only around 1,600, NM Tech is significant as the parent organization for several major research and development institutions: the Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, the Geophysical Research Center, the Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources and the Petroleum Research and Recovery Center.

The largest of these is the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC), an agency dedicated to research and development of explosive materials. This facility is one of the foremost explosion effects research laboratories in the world. The 32-square-mile field laboratory contains a hypervelocity light gas gun facility, a 20-foot diameter shock tube, a rocket sled ordnance test track, and a number of other gun firing ranges and explosive test facilities. Tests involving mock-ups of airplanes bombed by terrorists have been perform, along with much defense related explosive research, as their promotional literature states:

Several of the test ranges are set up to support various large- and small-scale explosive experiments, fragment projector experiments, warhead characterization tests, large and small caliber gun firings such as fuze evaluations, insensitive munitions (IM) testing, target response to single and multiple impacts, vulnerability assessment experiments, fragment or debris distribution studies, tactical rocket firings, vehicle and running engine experiments, and other specialized experiments. These test sites are located in terrain-sheltered areas that limit fragment dispersion, blast effects, noise, and provide security for proprietary or classified experiments. All test sites are equipped with proximate field facilities with adequate instrumentation, bunkers, personnel safety shelters, and electrical power as may be required for field testing.

Some 40 companies and state agencies are involved in testing programs at the EMRTC including the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) and the National labs. The EMRTC was recently formed by consolidating the Center for Explosives Testing and Research (CETR) and the Terminal Effects Research and Analysis (TERA) facility. TERA has been active at its test range west of Socorro since 1949.

The Geophysical Research Center, another agency operated by NM Tech, directs research in atmospheric physics and chemistry, hydrology and seismology. One of the Center's key facilities is the Wood's Tunnel Seismic Observatory, a seismological test chamber located in Socorro Peak, west of the Main Campus. Also, operated by NM Tech is the Petroleum Research and Recovery Center, one of the world's premier oil recovery strategy labs, and the Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research. The Langmuir Lab specializes in lightning, cloud physics, and water chemistry research, and is known for its storm-chasing scientists who fly into violent thunderstorms to take measurements in a heavily equipped Schwiezer aircraft. Next to the Langmuir Lab in the Magdalena Mountains, 17 miles southwest of the NM Tech campus, is the Joint Observatory for Cometary Research, operated by NM Tech, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This twin-domed observatory conducts research related to comets and other astronomical phenomena.  
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Los Alamos National Lab
Los Alamos National Lab is one of the three principal diversified Department of Energy research and development facilities, along with Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Labs. Like Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos is operated by the University of California. It employs around 10,000 people, occupies 43 square miles, and consumes around a billion dollars per year. The lab was established in 1943 as "Project Y" in the Manhattan Engineer District, the headquarters of the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bomb (tested at White Sands Missile Range, 150 miles south of Los Alamos). Most of the Lab facilities from that era are gone, though the spectacular main hall of the Los Alamos Ranch School (which was bought out and taken over by the Manhattan Project) remains, restored and open to the public. The hall is part of Fuller Lodge, which was used as the guest and dining quarters for the labs VIP's.

After the war, the lab began moving much of its operations out of the town of Los Alamos to nearby mesas. With the labs sprawling into an even more remote site, separated from the town by a narrow bridge, the town was eventually opened to normal commercial development. Research continued and facilities expanded with the pursuit of the hydrogen, or "thermonuclear" bomb (finally tested in 1952), nuclear rocket programs, and further nuclear weapons development and testing. Los Alamos Lab continues to pursue military and nuclear research and development, field testing its technologies at its secure and heavily contaminated test facilities near Los Alamos, on the Pajarito Plateau (and also, along with Lawrence Livermore and Sandia, at the Nevada Test Site).

The future of Los Alamos is dependent to some degree on the future of the Department of Energy, presently somewhat up in the air. Though it might face some changes, it is unlikely to be abandoned. It will most likely continue, in its own words, "...to investigate a multitude of phenomena that extend from the earth's interior through its atmosphere and magnetosphere into outer space, from subnuclear particles to galaxies, from events occurring in trillionths of a second to those that take thousands of centuries, and from temperatures near absolute zero to those measured in tens of millions of degrees" (Los Alamos literature).

The Bradbury Museum, located conspicuously in town, is the information center and science museum operated by the lab, and contains many interesting exhibits and displays.  Back To Top

Gnome Nuclear Test Site
The Gnome Nuclear Test Site is the location of a 1961 underground nuclear test conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission. This was the first test in the Plowshare Program, a program to develop peaceful uses for nuclear weapons. The Lawrence Radiation Lab (which later became Lawrence Livermore National Lab) designed this test, which was to have many physical experiments associated with it, including the collection of isotopes, and to study the possibility of using nuclear explosions to generate electricity.

The test, one of two large-scale underground nuclear tests in New Mexico, was conducted 1,200 feet below the surface in a salt deposit. The nuclear device was placed at the end of an underground corridor over 1,000 feet long. When detonated, the device, with an explosive yield equivalent to 3,100 tons of TNT, created a cavity 164 feet long and 72 feet high. A stream of radioactive smoke and steam flowed out of the shaft and ventilation lines, and formed a radioactive cloud that traveled northwards (and was detected, by some, as far away as Kansas).

Even though workers entered the chamber just a few months after the blast, the cavity remains highly radioactive to this day. The surface of the test site is now used to graze cattle, and the same salt formation is now the location of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, eight miles north of the site.  Back To Top

White Sands Missile Range
White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), at nearly 4000 square miles, is one of the largest military facilities in the country. It is primarily a test range whose main function is the support of missile development and test programs for the Army, Navy, Air Force, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), other government agencies and private industry.

Like most large military installations in the West, White Sands was created during World War II. It was officially established on July 9, 1945, one week before the world's first nuclear explosion, the Trinity test, was performed at its northern end. Over the years, most of the missile systems in the US arsenal were tested at WSMR, including the V-2, Nike, Viking, Corporal, Lance and Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. WSMR is currently the test range for the experimental Delta Clipper, McDonnell Douglas's reusable, tail-landing space vehicle.
The range has developed launch facilities in other areas of New Mexico, Utah, and Idaho for long-range testing. In such tests, missiles from these locations fly over the countryside and impact on White Sands. White Sands also provides an alternate landing site for the space shuttle program. In 1982 the orbiter Columbia landed on the range's Northrop Strip after its third flight into space.

In addition to the Army, Navy, Air Force, and NASA, many aerospace companies also have facilities permanent at the range. The WSMR employs 8,800 people, and is under operational control of the US. Army Test and Evaluation Command (TECOM), located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Headquarters for the WSMR is located 20 miles east of Las Cruces, off of US Highway 70. There is an impressive missile park (open 8 to 4 daily) and a small museum (open 8 to 4:30, Monday through Friday) located near the gate at the range Headquarters.   Back To Top

Trinity Site
The site of the worlds first nuclear blast, the Trinity Shot of the Manhattan Project, is on the north end of the 4,000 square mile White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It is open to the public twice a year, on the first Saturday in April and October. The site consists of a fenced area, enclosing much of the ground-zero area, with a monument at its center. Though the crater formed by the explosion has long-since been filled in, there is a portion of the blast area at ground zero which has been left intact for display purposes, visible through windows in a the canopy that covers it (the canopy serves the duel function of protecting it from erosion, and protecting visitors from it, as the original ground is still quite radioactive). Small pieces of Trinitite, the fused silica rock formed by the intense heat of the blast, still litters the Trinity Site, and it is radioactive enough to fog photographic film. Back To Top

Gasbuggy Nuclear Test Site
The Gasbuggy Nuclear Test Site is the location of a 1967 underground nuclear explosion, conducted to test the viability of using a nuclear device to aid in natural gas extraction. It was part of the Plowshare Program, the program to develop peaceful uses of nuclear weapons, and was the first use of a nuclear explosion for industrial purposes.

The test was overseen by the San Francisco Operations Office of the Atomic Energy Commission, and was conducted by the Lawrence Radiation Lab (later to become the Lawrence Livermore National Lab) in conjunction with the El Paso Natural Gas Company. Called "gas stimulation", the technique has been used employing conventional explosives, and it was hoped that a larger nuclear explosion would be capable of opening up "tight" gas deposits which are not otherwise economically viable. The test called for a 29 kiloton nuclear device to be placed at the bottom of a 4,240 foot deep shaft drilled in a "tight" shale formation known to contain natural gas.

To a large degree the experiment went as planned: the underground cavity produced by the explosion, 80 feet wide and 335 feet high, filled with natural gas from the fractured surrounding rock. However the gas was too radioactive to be commercially distributed by the public utilities.

The site, in Carson National Forest, is open to public access. It consists of a clearing with a small monument, which has a plaque containing a brief description of the event.  Back To Top

Kirtland AFB
Kirtland Air Force Base is one of the most vital and active military facilities in the country, with over 20,000 people working within its secured perimeter, at the south end of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Among the 180 tenant organizations at Kirtland are:

-Sandia National Laboratories
-the headquarters of the Air Force's Phillips Laboratories
-the National Atomic Museum
-the Department of Energy's Albuquerque Operations Office
-and of course the facilities and operations of the Air Force Base, which include the Manzano Mountains nuclear weapons storage facility.  
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Phillips Laboratory
The Air Force's Phillips Laboratory is headquartered at Kirtland Air Force Base. The Laboratory is one of the Air Force's major research and development labs, and is a focal point for all space- and missile-related research and technology; including geophysics, propulsion, space vehicles, survivability, and directed-energy weapons. The Laboratory has an annual budget of over $600 million, and has nearly 1,900 military and civilian employees at three locations: Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico; Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts; and Edwards Air Force Base, California. It is part of Air Force Materiel Command and reports to and supports the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California.  Back To Top

The Department of Energy's Albuquerque Operations Office
The Albuquerque Operations Office of the DOE is located on Kirtland Air Force Base. This office is one of eight DOE operations offices across the country. The Albuquerque office is responsible for the management of several key DOE facilities:

-Sandia National Lab, also based on Kirtland Air Force Base
-Los Alamos National Lab, in Los Alamos, New Mexico
-The Kansas City Plant, in Kansas City, Missouri
-The Mound Plant in Miamisburg, Ohio
-The Pinellas Plant in Largo, Florida
-The Pantex Plant, in Amarillo, Texas 
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Sandia National Laboratory
Sandia National Laboratory is one of the three primary diversified research and development organizations operated by the Department of Energy (the other two are Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos). Sandia employs about 8,000 people and has an annual operating budget near $1.4 billion. It is headquartered at Kirtland Air Force Base , with additional facilities in Livermore, California, Hawaii, and at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.

Sandia was established in the 1940's to support the development of nuclear weapons. It was managed by AT&T's Bell Labs up to 1992, when management was transferred to the Martin Marietta Corporation, the defense technologies company recently merged with Lockheed. Sandia now conducts R&D in defense, environmental remediation, energy production, non-proliferation verification technologies, robotics, nano-technologies, and remote-sensing, just to name a few. Like the other DOE labs, Sandia's future is uncertain, though its substantial facilities are not likely to be abandoned, nor is its substantial contribution to national defense and the local economy likely to be ignored when changes to the role of the DOE are considered. Back To Top

National Atomic Museum
The National Atomic Museum is a large gallery of artifacts and informational displays about the nations nuclear weapons development program. The museum is operated by the Department of Energy (DOE), and is located on the grounds of Kirtland Air Force Base.
On display at the Museum are numerous nuclear weapons casings, including the casings of Fat Man and Little Boy, the types of bombs used on Japan in World War II. Also on display is the casing of a Mk. 17 hydrogen bomb, the same type that fell out of a B-36 bomber on its decent into Kirtland Air Force Base in 1957. Static displays on the history of the development of nuclear technologies, and a regular screening of the film The Ten Seconds that Shook the World are additional features of the museum. In the lot outside is a nuclear cannon, and several aircraft, including a B-29 and a B-52.

The library is one of the best features of the museum, as it houses a good collection of books on nuclear and military technologies, as well as housing many of the government documents that served as source material for these books. There is also a museum store with a limited array of scientific models and toys, and an unusual collection of out-of-print books for sale (many at high price). Parts from missiles and Cray supercomputers can also be purchased, while supplies last.

The museum was founded by the Defense Nuclear Agency in 1969, and was congressionally chartered as the nations "official" Atomic Museum in 1991. However, with possible cut-backs and changes to the DOE, management of the museum may soon be transferred to private industry, probably into the hands of Lockheed-Martin, the primary contractor at Sandia Labs, located nearby on Kirtland Air Force Base. If this occurs, changes to the museum are likely to follow. Back To Top