Day 13 - Houston

June 27 - We traveled from San Antonio to Houston

We arrived at the RV park around noon, quickly got set up (need that air condo!) and ate lunch.  Then we piled into the truck and headed for the Johnson Space Center.  Jim has been really looking forward to showing this to us and it did not disappoint!

We took two tours.  The first took us to Bldg 9, which is the vehicle mock up facility.  This is a HUGE building where there are replicas set up of the various areas of the ISS so astronauts can train for future trips. Everything they need to duplicate work up in the ISS is contained in this building.  It was incredible.

After Bldg 9, we stopped at a display of rockets.  Some were outside (Mercury capsule) and there was an actual Saturn 5 rocket that was housed in its own building.  I've watched space launches on TV my whole life and I really had no idea how big the rocket was, and how much of it was actually filled with fuel!  Along with the Saturn 5 was a synopsis of all of the Apollo missions.  It was very interesting to read about them and see pictures of each of the astronauts.

We took the tram back inside (needed an air conditioning fix.... :)) and looked at some of the other exhibits. Jim watched a video while the boys and I had a snack & something cold to drink (reference the previous remark about air condo... lol!). Once we cooled down, we took another tour... this time to the historic mission control.  This was extremely cool.  We sat in the room where the NASA employees commanded all of the space flights up until 1992. The guide who spoke while we sat at mission control really put things into perspective when he reminded us of the technology they did not have during the early days of flight.  The youngsters in the audience had trouble imagining the space program without PCs!

I've attached two photos... the first one is Greg with a full view of the Saturn 5 first stage.  The second is Jim and the boys with the Saturn 5 command module (where the LEM was stored) in the background.  You can see the command module engine in the middle.