Ana Kieu, Jadetimes Staff
Ana Kieu is a Jadetimes news reporter covering travel.
A cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex head that was found in Montana and excavated by noted dino-hunter Jack Horner (pictured left). A boy (pictured right) is seen exploring a Mercury space capsule at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Alabama. The United States is full of travel spots, but this article will focus on a different angle — the top U.S. travel spots that soak up American science and innovation leadership. After all, the U.S. led the world in science and innovation for most of its history, and science can back up its claim. As of September 2024, the United States boasts 411 Nobel Prize winners in physics and medicine. The American Nobel Prize honorees trump the United Kingdom's 137 winners for the No. 2 spot. The United States led the world in advancement in atomic and nuclear power, space travel, and the digital economy. The U.S. also had one of the world's richest repositories of dinosaur fossils. Here are five travel spots that soak up American science and innovation. The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is a stellar showcase of American explanatory power that perhaps boasts the world's largest display of rocketry and memorabilia from several NASA programs. The U.S. Space & Rocket Center's biggest highlight would be the Apollo 11 virtual reality (VR) experience, which puts puts visitors inside the mission that first put men on the moon, and in the summer, hosts "astronaut chats" with the nation's top space explorers. The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan, is a flagship museum with shocking American memorabilia, such as the Rosa Parks bus, the John F. Kennedy assassination limousine, etc. The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation's name stemmed from Henry Ford, aka the Founder of the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Mich. The Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, offers one of the world's top collections of North American dinosaur fossils — and not just the Tyrannosaurus rex. The Museum of the Rockies' focus on dinosaurs isn't fabricated, as the American land was ruled by dinosaurs back in the day. White Sands National Park in West Alamogordo, New Mexico, is a national park surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range. White Sands National Park's natural beauty is awe-inspiring for the public, while its sobering role impacted the history of modern warfare. In July 1945, American scientists first unleashed the power of the atomic bomb, which was a victory in American ingenuity and industrial power amid World War II. Space Center Houston in Houston, Texas, is a science museum that serves as the official visitor center of NASA Johnson Space Center. Since 1992, Space Center Houston has been widely considered the world's most prestigious aerospace museum with a spectacular collection of rockery and artifacts. Among Space Center Houston's treasures are the space capsules flown and returned to Earth by the Mercury 9, Gemini 5, and Apollo 17 missions, the latter of which in 1972 carried astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, the last two men to walk on the moon.
