Trip to NASA

I am pleased to make my debut on this august blog. Thanks to Almamater for the invitation!

Earlier this summer, our family traveled to Houston to visit our friends, the H's. After enjoying some food and fellowship, it was time to hit the road. Firstborn and I, along with Mr. H. and his son, J, made our way through (Houston's notorious) traffic congestion, heading south on Gulf Freeway. For I had been fortunate to arrange a private, "behind the scenes" tour of the Johnson Space Center given by an acquaintance and NASA employee, Ms. N.


Ms. N. enjoys a rewarding position with NASA and has worked in Mission Control during several space shuttle missions. She recently received a promotion - to Flight Director of the International Space Station! We were quite impressed at her expertise, professionalism, and depth of responsibility (all at the tender age of 31). She most generously shared with us three hours of information, impressions, and anecdotes from her unique perspective.


We toured three Mission Control centers. The first was used during the Apollo missions of the 60's and 70's, all the way up through some of the shuttle missions in the 90's. It was here that the world heard the famous "One small step for man..." line during man's first trip to the moon. (This room is a National Historic Landmark). We enjoyed the "primitive" controls and the avocado green coloring of the furnishings. We were privileged to get up close to the control desks, while the other visiting tourists remained behind glass far in the rear of the room.

We then saw the current space shuttle mission control and then the ISS mission control. These spaces were considerably more modern and enjoyed higher technological support. It was interesting to track the current path of the ISS and to see the laptop with the astronauts' daily schedule. (I think they were about to head to sleep at the time of our visit).





Next was the space shuttle mock-up - a replica of the interior of the shuttle, where astronauts train for missions. We all marveled at the extraordinarily complex controls and got some sense of the space they have in which to work. Life in zero-G means lots of velcro around the cabin!

A highlight of the tour was visiting the "Neutral Buoyancy Lab," which is an enormous swimming pool as long as a football field and 40 feet deep. It is used for training astronauts in the sense of zero-G. The most amazing feature was a life-size replica of the ISS on the bottom of the pool, so that astronauts could practice manuvering about this complex structure.


What an education! Since the tour, Firstborn and I have enjoyed two space program DVD's, including the 1995 nail-biter Apollo 13, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks. It was amazing to see how faithfully Hollywood duplicated the appearance of the original Houston Mission Control center in this film.

Our thanks to Ms. N for a most memorable experience!