My last day was spent at the Space Center, Houston. I had to fly home via somewhere so chose Houston. As I was there, I thought that I would try and fit in the Space Center. It’s a great trip and worth a day out. Here are the highlights.
You start off with a great view of a lunar lander. Our tour guide actually worked on this.
You can go inside the cockpit of a shuttle.
The engine nozzles are so cool.
And even Star Trek makes an entrance.
They had loads of space suits which were really awesome to see. This one is for a space shuttle pilot.
There was a Ripley’s Believe it or Not exhibition and this is a picture made from computer keyboard keys.
I went on the level nine tour which takes you behind the scenes. This is the negative buoyancy pool where space suited astronauts would practice building the international space station.
Just to prove I was there.
We went round the interior mock up for the space station where astronauts could practice the interior work.
The new missions will be flown in something like an old Apollo module. It is much larger and called the Orion. The first test flight took place last year.
The plan is for a mission to Mars and these are some of the robotic devices that will help there.
We were then taken to the Space Shuttle simulation module. We came up through the shuttle bay and I have never seen so much wiring! It was so they could practice the wiring and spot problems. It came in handy many times on missions.
We then had a tour of the new mission control which is where the space station is run from. You can see where it is on the screen, currently over western Australia.
We then went into the old Mission Control where I sat in the Flight Director’s seat and used the red telephone – the one where they took the infamous phone call, “Houston, we have a problem”!
Our last stop was the Saturn Five Rocket. This one was built but never used as the space programme was cancelled.
A final goodbye was to the Space Shuttle sat outside the museum.
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Houston, We have a problem Kathy’s leaving………….BOO…..HOO.
🙂
Quite an experience thanks for that Kathy.
Thanks Ron. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger so it was really awesome to see it all up close.