Last Friday we were up early for our departure from Livingston. While I stayed back to pay our electricity usage, Ed drove the motorhome to get propane. I made it there just has he finished and while he drove on to get the motorhome inspected, I paid the bill. He was just about finished with the inspection when I got there. It all worked well and we were on the road to Houston about 9:30. Halfway there, we decided to stop for breakfast.
The Houston Space Center has been on my bucket list for a long time. Since its about 90 minutes from Livingston, we decided we would stop on our way south. We arrived just in time to make the 1:00 pm tram tour. The tram tour made a stop at Mission Control, the Training Facility and Rocket park.
Mission Control
The floor here in the training center is made of a special material that lets the training chair float like you would in space.
Approaching Rocket park on the tram, here are the Mercury rockets and the Gemini rockets. The building we went into was all about the Apollo Program. My father worked all his life for General Electric. During the “Race for the Moon” many of the GE employees were contracted out to NASA. We spent almost 3 years living in Huntsville, Alabama where my father worked on the Saturn Booster. It took 5 of them to lift off the Apollo rocket. Here is one. I couldn’t get far enough back to get all 5 together.
After the tram tour, we went into the Starship Gallery Museum. Here they had timelines of all the different space flights, starting the Mercury Program. (Unfortunately it was also very dark inside so my pictures didn’t come out.) It brought back memories of sitting in front of a TV during school (5th grade) and watching as Alan Shepard made history. Then again, when John Glenn first orbited the earth. I remember watching with my father as Ed White became the first person to walk in space during the Gemini flights. (By the way, they named it Gemini, because there where 2 astronauts). I remember Apollo I where we lost Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee as fire swept through the capsule while sitting on the launch pad.
And, I was one of those who were up in the middle of the night, clued to the TV, when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the surface of the moon, along with Buzz Aldrin. Each step in the space program, every flight, was a learning step that led to that moment. NASA is talking about going back to the moon. Someday we may have a colony on the moon to be used as a stepping off point on the way to Mars or further.
One last picture…. Memorial Grove
Each tree here is a tribute to those astronauts lost in the Challenger and Columbia Shuttle flights.
To infinity and beyond!!!
The Houston Space Center has been on my bucket list for a long time. Since its about 90 minutes from Livingston, we decided we would stop on our way south. We arrived just in time to make the 1:00 pm tram tour. The tram tour made a stop at Mission Control, the Training Facility and Rocket park.
Mission Control
The floor here in the training center is made of a special material that lets the training chair float like you would in space.
Approaching Rocket park on the tram, here are the Mercury rockets and the Gemini rockets. The building we went into was all about the Apollo Program. My father worked all his life for General Electric. During the “Race for the Moon” many of the GE employees were contracted out to NASA. We spent almost 3 years living in Huntsville, Alabama where my father worked on the Saturn Booster. It took 5 of them to lift off the Apollo rocket. Here is one. I couldn’t get far enough back to get all 5 together.
After the tram tour, we went into the Starship Gallery Museum. Here they had timelines of all the different space flights, starting the Mercury Program. (Unfortunately it was also very dark inside so my pictures didn’t come out.) It brought back memories of sitting in front of a TV during school (5th grade) and watching as Alan Shepard made history. Then again, when John Glenn first orbited the earth. I remember watching with my father as Ed White became the first person to walk in space during the Gemini flights. (By the way, they named it Gemini, because there where 2 astronauts). I remember Apollo I where we lost Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee as fire swept through the capsule while sitting on the launch pad.
And, I was one of those who were up in the middle of the night, clued to the TV, when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the surface of the moon, along with Buzz Aldrin. Each step in the space program, every flight, was a learning step that led to that moment. NASA is talking about going back to the moon. Someday we may have a colony on the moon to be used as a stepping off point on the way to Mars or further.
One last picture…. Memorial Grove
Each tree here is a tribute to those astronauts lost in the Challenger and Columbia Shuttle flights.
To infinity and beyond!!!
