We had a nice sleep-in this morning - well, as late as it gets - 7:30 or so - and relaxed with coffee before getting ready to head off to the NASA Johnson Space Center.
What a great tour we had. A lot of the museum part is OK. It's interesting in itself. But the tram tour is the best part. The tram takes you into the command centre, where they are currently managing the International Space Station, for instance, and from where the various space missions have been controlled, especially Apollo.
This was the Apollo command centre with all their old equipment. They did everything with big computers which held about 25 MB of data. Can you imagine?! That's half an app on a smartphone.
It also shows you where testing is done at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. Astronauts can go through training like low gravity, etc., play around with the Canadarm (yes!), experiment with robots, and all kinds of fun stuff.
This is where they practice docking.
A sewing machine?
And we saw the Rocket Park where a Saturn V rocket is on its side and a good description of the engines and thrust required to launch a spaceship is given. This is why it's called Saturn V.
Back at the main museum, they have a replica of the space shuttle Enterprise and the actual Boeing 747 they used to transport it. We went through that setup. Fun stuff.
And here's the white room where the astronauts had their last touch of Earth before boarding the space ship, including those on the Challenger space shuttle.
So now they're working on the Orion space vehicle for a trip to the moon, an asteroid, and ultimately Mars, by 2037.
All in all, a great visit, and worth the price of admission.
Tomorrow we're off to our final destination in Mercedes, Texas.
What a great tour we had. A lot of the museum part is OK. It's interesting in itself. But the tram tour is the best part. The tram takes you into the command centre, where they are currently managing the International Space Station, for instance, and from where the various space missions have been controlled, especially Apollo.
This was the Apollo command centre with all their old equipment. They did everything with big computers which held about 25 MB of data. Can you imagine?! That's half an app on a smartphone.
It also shows you where testing is done at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. Astronauts can go through training like low gravity, etc., play around with the Canadarm (yes!), experiment with robots, and all kinds of fun stuff.
This is where they practice docking.
A sewing machine?
And we saw the Rocket Park where a Saturn V rocket is on its side and a good description of the engines and thrust required to launch a spaceship is given. This is why it's called Saturn V.
Back at the main museum, they have a replica of the space shuttle Enterprise and the actual Boeing 747 they used to transport it. We went through that setup. Fun stuff.
And here's the white room where the astronauts had their last touch of Earth before boarding the space ship, including those on the Challenger space shuttle.
So now they're working on the Orion space vehicle for a trip to the moon, an asteroid, and ultimately Mars, by 2037.
All in all, a great visit, and worth the price of admission.
Tomorrow we're off to our final destination in Mercedes, Texas.
very cool! i don't know much about rockets or spacecraft in general, so this is a place i'd like to visit sometime. those rockets really are huge, no wonder rocket propulsion uses up so much fuel
ReplyDelete