NASA

If you know me well, then you know I am such a museum girl.  It hadn't even entered my mind how close we were going to be to NASA Houston when I was planning our trip.  Thank goodness Josh mentioned it and thought it would be cool to go.  (I married a total museum guy.  Lucky!)

We left the beachside and surf and seagulls behind and stopped at NASA on our way to Uncle Ray's for our last night.  We ran into this astronaut just inside the visitor's center.  He was on his way to load up for a long mission, but had just a second to say hi.  ;)

The Visitor's Center was packed full of awesome things to do and explore.  Everything was exquisitely designed and the whole place was a feast for the eyes.

In the picture above, the kids are checking out the floor of a shuttle cockpit - yea, the yellow grate on the floor of the cockpit is the coolest part so far.  Silly kids.

It looked very much like a normal airplane cockpit with a few differences.  But thinking of controlling a shuttle through layers of actual atmosphere and real-live outer space kinda makes me uneasy.....I'll leave that to the professionals. 

NASA offers a couple of different tours and although Josh and I would have loved to do it all, we chose only one to attempt with the two little ones.  Alaina was kinda hard to keep up with but Joseph did really well.  The tour we choose took us on a tram through the complex which looked like any other complex of professional buildings and reeked of the 60's from the outside.  But whoa brother, those rocket scientists are planning BIG things in here....we're not talking just any ol' buildings .

The tour was of the training facility and there was high security to get around.  I kinda wondered if it was all just for show but then when I saw those armed guards escort a man out for stepping out of the line...ha, I tease.  No one was escorted out or hurt in the touring of NASA...

 

This training area is a replica of the Space Station.  Cool, cool, cool stuff.  I know the pictures just don't do it justice so take my word for it and if you haven't been - plan a trip to go!

Above is a picture of the shuttle cockpit for simulation and a portion of a space capsule.  There were many cool machines and robots in this place.

And here is a real live astronaut training in a gravity-something-or-other simulator.  There are some very official looking folks standing around him and looking very intent on their project.  I thought seeing them really training for launching into space was pretty darn cool.

Kinda looks like the Universal Studios tour!  But I tell you what, folks, this ain't NO theme park.  This is the real deal.

Our tram stopped off at Rocket Park where we got up close and personal with rockets that had launched.  Above is a walkway that connects the launch pad to the shuttle cockpit - similar to the walkway a normal airplane uses - but way cooler because astronauts use it!  It's usually several stories in the air.

This is a random massive engine at Rocket Park and Little Joey.  He was loving all of this!

They had several rockets on display that NASA used for the space program.  I can't remember the years these flew off the top of my head.  I'll have to come edit this if I can locate the info.  For posterity and such.  

It was HOT HOT HOT and as much as we like these "little" rockets...the granddaddy of them all lay in the top secret climate controlled building behind us.  This is the stuff people come to NASA for.  May I present to you:  the Saturn V Rocket in all her glory...

This is where I should have Joseph or Josh standing next to it to show the size, but the picture I got with Joseph next to it was blurry.  Boo.  So imagine that Joseph measures about to a little more than half of the wheel.  This thing was huge.  The Saturn V is the one you might think of related to launching for the moon.  It was used for all the Apollo missions from '67-73 (including the first mission to the moon) and also launched the SkyLab.  Wowza.

They had a great exhibit showcasing all the Apollo launches in here.  They had detached the rocket in a couple places so you can see how it would have done it in space as each pieces fuel was used up and dropped off.

Here is the Apollo capsule.  My friends, this small capsule sat upon so much fuel and power that I don't think there is enough anti-anxiety medication in the world to calm me if I were the one strapped in it.  

It was beautiful!  This is the pure history a mere inches away from us!

Next, we loaded back on the tram and headed back to the Visitor's Center to finish up with the exhibits.  (I'm loving re-living this trip through the blog!)