Texas, Houston - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - Johnson Space Center

I’ve been sitting here for the last half hour looking at the pictures I took today and trying to think whether or not I absorbed enough of the information we heard to be able to pass along something that made sense.  I have to admit that when the majority of the achievements of the space program were made in the late 60’s and early 70’s I was too busy being a young mom to pay much attention to what was going on in the rest of the world.  Today I paid more attention and I was in awe.

We headed out early to the Johnson Space Center and its visitors center Space Center Houston.  It was in the mid 80’s with low humidity here today, it was a beautiful day to be out on the bike.  I hear it was spitting snow back in Indiana, got to admit I don’t miss that.

We took a tram from the visitor center to the Johnson Space Center (JSC).  JSC is a federal facility, home to Mission Control, where missions are monitored and directed from seconds after launch to landing.  This is where astronauts are trained and NASA programs are managed.

This is where more than 800 pounds of lunar rocks and soil collected during the Apollo program are housed.  Many tests are being conducted on those rocks to see how plants might be grown.

JSC is also the lead center in design and implementation of the International Space Station.  We currently have two American astronauts in the International Space Station along with one Italian and three Russians.

We listened to a presentation in the observation room looking into the Mission Control room that was used from 1965 to 1992.  This is where US Presidents, the Queen of England and the astronaut’s families came to observe.  In the mid 60’s there was no such thing as around the clock television coverage so if the families wanted to know what was going on they had to come to the observation room.

 

 

I was surprised, I thought the Mission Control Room would be bigger.  The monitors you see are not computers only data display screens.  The people who were monitoring the screens had to write down the data they were keeping track of.  They mentioned that the mainframe computer they had at the time had about 5 MB of memory or enough for 10 digital pictures.  They didn’t have calculators so any calculations were made on slide rules.  Amazing they were able to actually get a man to the moon.

We reached the observation room by climbing 87 steps.  They asked before we started up the stairs if anyone would have a problem with that.  At step 1 it didn’t sound like much of a problem.  However, if there had been 88 steps I might not have made it – definitely have to get an exercise program going.  As we were going up these steps, we passed the Mission Control room in current use.

From Mission Control we went to the Space Vehicle Mock Up Facility.  This is where the astronauts receive a lot of their training.  They learn to work in near zero gravity conditions.  They learn the ins and outs of operating the equipment for the US and other countries.

These are the Orion capsules which are being developed for travel to Mars.

A few of the models of the rovers the astronauts use.

 

This robot is a development for the future.  Our guide said its fingers were so well developed that it could turn pages and text without errors.

 

Our last stop was to see the Saturn V spaceship.  There were 21 spaceships built for the Apollo program.  Seventeen of them went into space, funds were cut after that.  This is one of the three spaceships that were ready to go in that program but never made it into space.  This thing is huge – over 300 feet long (tall).

There are five combustion engines on the back.  See how small this man looks next to one.  Our guide told us that the first two sections of this spacecraft are basically fuel tanks.

 

 

This very front part is where the astronauts are.  I had to concentrate not to shiver at the very thought of being packed into such a small space.

This is something I didn’t expect to see at the space center, but they were right across the road from the building housing the Saturn V spaceship.

Back in the visitors center we saw the actual Apollo 17 command module.  This was the last mission of project Apollo, the last manned spaceship to have traveled to the moon, December 7-19 1972.

And I touched a 3.8 billion year old moon rock.  This is one of eight samples of moon rock in the world that the public can touch.  It was very smooth, but that could be because so many people have touched it.

We saw the trainer that was used to train astronauts for working/living in the Skylab, America’s first space station.  See the guy floating?  He looked so real I had to double check.