Johnson Space Center

I have always wanted to visit the Houston Space Center.  Ever since I was a kid and my parents took me to NASA in Florida.  Ever since I took my own kids to Kennedy Space Center.

This is why, when we were attending a family wedding in Dallas, we flew into Houston a few days early instead.  I mean, going to see the Houston Texans stadium was an added bonus...but the real draw in Houston for us was the Johnson Space Center.  I mean, we visited two days in a row, and we bought a membership. So we can go back again any time for the next year.  You know, the next time we happen to be in Houston this year.  (Hey, stranger things have happened, I'm sure. I just can't think of any right off the top of my head...)

Sidebar:  I have 154 photos from the Johnson Space Center.  And our photo-taking skills must be improving, because they are all good.  Either that, or it's this new lens Kevin bought me for Christmas.

T-38 Talons

The indoor exhibit space at the Johnson Space Center was not nearly as large as the one in Kennedy, but this may be my own faulty memory from childhood.  (We didn't really explore inside the Kennedy exhibits when we visited last year.)  However, the kids still found plenty to do and see and learn.

Here is Connor touching a moon rock:

This rock was brought to Earth by the Apollo 17 crew 

who visited the Moon in December 1972.

This rock is from Sea of Serenity, and it is 3.8 billion years old.

It is one of only eight lunar rocks in the world that are available to be touched by the public.

Sidebar:  There are only eight lunar rocks in the world that are available to be touched by the public?!  Am I a nerd for thinking that we have touched almost half of them? There was this one in Dallas...one at the Kennedy Space Center...and one from the touring NASA exhibit that was at COSI two summers ago.  Maybe touching a rock from the moon is just something you remember...and I wonder where the others are... (End Sidebar)

These next two photos of Connor are really amusing to me:

 Work it, Connor!

Look how excited he is!

 

As we did at the Kennedy Space Center, we took a tram tour of the grounds to access some other fabulous sites.  Unlike our experience at Kennedy, getting onto this tram was a breeze.  It was a weekday afternoon, and there were no lines.  We sat right behind the driver, at the boys' request. 

One of the stops on the tour was a giant warehouse exhibiting a Saturn V.  Even though we have already seen a Saturn V, it was definitely worth seeing again!  

But wait a second.  What is that in front of the Saturn V building?  Why it's the Western Heritage Pavilion...and some huge long horn steers!  We are in Texas, after all!

I believe that the story was that a prominent astronaut or NASA somebody donated this land to be used by the local 4-H clubs to raise long horn steers for competitions (read: rodeos) to raise scholarship money so they could go to college and study to become astronauts or work at NASA themselves. 

The other building we visited on the tram tour was the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, which is the real working lab that houses an identical working copy of the International Space Station.  This was brand new to us, and very exciting!

Every single part of the International Space Station is here, exactly as it is up in orbit, so that they can do testing in a controlled environment.

This facility was definitely a highlight of our trip for me.  I mean, other than our college-age tour guide kid getting a bit preachy about the commercialization of the exploration of space...but whatever.  I mean, look at this robotic arm!  There is one exactly like it up on the space station!  And check out that moon buggy!

Oh yeah, and check out Robonaut.  He's up there, too:

 

A large portion of the tram tour was devoted to driving around and looking at the outside of buildings where important NASA things were going on.

You know, like Mission Control.

But we couldn't actually go into them, because there are people hard at work inside.  I would say that is the main difference between the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Johnson Space Center in Texas.  Kennedy exists (aside from shuttle launches) as a historical and tourist destination.  The Johnson Space Center is the very active heart of NASA operations, with a small focus on the visiting general public.

The end