White Sands NM says space is the place

White Sands, NM

SINE

White Sands, New Mexico.,

CORONADO

So this is White Sands. It’s as white as chalk.

SINE

It makes chalk. Gypsum makes chalk... Not sand.

CORONADO

So this is what goes into drywall.

AURA

It’s in the alabaster the ancients used for sculpture. Thine alabaster cities gleam.

CORONADO

It’s in fertilizer, too. For amber waves of grain. See, I know that song. - It’s a wonder it’s still here.

AURA

It’s a National Monument.

CORONADO

Oh.

SINE

It’s in Chinese shi gao medicine. In tofu, too.

AURA

Really!

SINE

But if we can get back to White Sands for minute: The guidebook and links you told me about say White Sands Missile Range is next to the National Monument, and is where the Space Shuttle lands sometimes. That was before the Russian Soyuz and Musk's Falcon began. The man that built the first liquid-fuel rocket is the man that started rockets here. He moved to Roswell when the Massachusetts fire marshal made him stop.

AURA

I wonder if what people thought was a UFO was actually that guy experimenting. I never heard of that before.

SINE

I’m still reading. Hah! What got the Shuttle here was acceleration and deceleration tests they did on monkeys and humans here. I did not know that. They launched chimp monkeys into low orbit and then they trained Shuttle pilots here. I did not know that. Hah!. And you know what? And this is not in guidebook: I know that gypsum dunes are at north pole on Mars.