Space Day!!!

It's Space Day! It's SPACE Day! YAY!!!

When planning this trip, we had no other desire to stop in Houston, except to see the NASA Johnson Space Centre, and scheduled in an entire day for it. We've been to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida already, many years ago, and to the Ames Research Center in Mountainview, California. We've seen our share of Spaceships, Saturn V rockets and touched all the moon rocks - so of course we have to see one more! Plus, Houston is the home of Mission Control for the Apollo and Gemini space missions, so you can imagine the place is not only steeped in science and technological wonders, but historical ones too. So excited!

We arrive at the Space Centre, guided by the Shuttle piggy-backing on top of a Boeing 747, and head straight for reservations of the tram tours. The Johnson Space Center is actually one part of a huge campus where all of the research, development, testing, etc. for the Nasa Space Program has been happening since the 1960s. The tram tours parade us all around the campus and to various buildings of importance, while pointing out other interesting sights, like animals that live in the area(deer, turtles, a gator called MECO - Main Engine Cut-Off...), or the Schwinn free bicycles that date from the beginning of the Space Program, and have been lovingly restored and maintained ever since. The legend goes that the current riders could be using the same bikes as famous astronauts that once stepped foot on the moon.

Our first tour, on the blue tram, takes us to building 9, the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. It's where mockups of things like the International Space Station and Space Shuttle are used for developing, training and research. We get to walk through a corridor above the work floor, where we can look down on the model space crafts and living stations, workers lifting and bolting pieces into place, others deep in thought at their work stations. There are pieces here from the new Artemis projects, as well as a robot prototype that is in development for the future Mars projects. Workshops are strewn with all sorts pieces and tools and diagrams - and coffee cups and other things you might find in any normal office.  One area has old Pfaff sewing machines and fabric, and two workers are folding and examine zippered square bags. It both looks exactly like what I expected, and at the same time, nothing like what I expected - I just want to stay here all day and look at all the details of all the workshops and all the tables and offices, but then the people at Nasa might think I am trying to steal secrets of their space program and have me deported, so I follow the rest of the groups back to the tram.

Comes in its own collector's box!

Next stop is the Saturn V Rocket shed. Back When Nasa was super-popular, and well-funded in the 60s, they were building and sending shuttle into space every 6 months. As a result, they built a whole series of the Saturn V booster rockets, the fuel cells that power the astronauts in their tiny pod up through the Earth's atmosphere and then into outer space. They burnt out and then either come falling back down in pieces, or remain in space, sometimes smashing into the moon. However, when the Space program ended abruptly, along with funding, three of the fuel rockets were left, having never been put to use. They were preserved as exhibits, and put on display here in Houston, as well as Cape Canaveral in Florida. 

Seeing a Saturn V Rocket is always impressive, because it it SO BIG. And for some reason, they always seem to make the first view you encounter the 5 giant exhaust cones at the base. Then you come around the side, and see the entire height/length of the thing. And then you  imagine this thing filled with jet fuel, and the astronauts strapped into their teeny little capsule, propped up on the very top of it...Crazy stuff, that.

Lunch!

Our blue tram then dropped us back off at the main centre, where Mario and I decided to take a break for lunch in the Food Labs, which is really just a cute, thematic name for the cafeteria. BUT, the food is actually delicious! We order BBQ sandwiches - one with pulled pork, the other with brisket - and they came with sides salad, so we got one potato salad and one serving of creamed corn. Everything was surprisingly good - homemade, with good flavour, real identifiable pieces of food, extra BBQ sauce which was pleasantly spicy, and tangy pickles. We were fed and happy and ready to continue touring the campus.

Next up, the white tram that takes us through the campus, buildings trapped in time, to the location of the original Mission Control, where all of the Apollo missions AND most of the Gemini missions were headed from the ground. The current missions, including scientific work with the ISS crew, is done from another, newer facility not 20 ft. below us. So, in an effort to preserve the historic importance of Misson Control, the whole room, including the viewing gallery, with its plush reclining seats, ashtrays in all the seatbacks, and 4 telephone booths for reporters to contact newsrooms, were lovingly restored to their former glory. But they are here for us to enjoy, while watching a video recreation of important events from space history, including the lunar landing. In front of us, the dimmed control room comes to life, screens light up and panels fill with diagrams, and maps, and the clocks above the screens count down different events in progress. All around us, we hear the recorded communications between the astronauts and the Mission Control, the voice of Neil Armstrong reciting his famous first words on the moon. It is a moving presentation, and we all felt just a little bit of the emotion that all the scientists and engineers must have felt during those first missions to space.

Again, we head back to the Space Centre, this time stopping for a coffee at the cleverly-named Grounds Control. We sip our coffees while watching a video filmed on the ISS regarding a "change in guard" of sorts, when 2 astronauts left, including Canadian David St-Jacques and American Anne McClain, and how the atmosphere changes when new crew members join the existing crew. There was talk of daily life, experiments being undertaken in space, family meals, lots of hugs and tears floating around the space station. It was really good.  We also toured some of the exhibits on Mars, on the Artemis project, and of course, that Shuttlecraft outside, piggybacking on the Boeing 747. And we maxed out our time -  a quick run around the giftshop and we were literally closing the place, as the gate was coming down behind us!

Maybe I stole the moon? ;)

Happy that we filled our entire day with all things Space, we headed back to Galveston, back to the beach, and back to the awesome parking spot facing the waves. There was no moon tonight, as the clouds had rolled in, but still plenty of mosquitos waiting for us. I'm sure the sunrise tomorrow will more than make up for it!