Houston Space Center

For our Christmas vacation, one of the things we did was go to  Space Center Houston.

 

At the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

 

They had an Angry Birds Space exhibit, but I didn’t find it very interesting.There was also a film. It told about how humans wanted to find out more about the universe. They also had a simulator for the launch sequence of the Apollo Missions.

 

The film looked like it was on a film reel.

Next, we sent a message that was supposedly to Mars. There was a delay. After our cousins arrived, we had a snack and went on a tram to Historic Mission Control, that was used for the Gemini and Apollo missions. They didn’t even have computers during that time. Next, we went on the other tram to the astronaut training facility. There were a bunch of cool spaceship parts there.

Finally, we went to the Space Shuttle Endeavour. It was taken through Los Angeles on top of a plane. To make the plane, which was a Boeing 747, lighter they removed all the seats and everything else passengers would use. Even most of the insulation that was used to keep the passengers warm was removed. Somehow, the plane and spaceship were driven through neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Workers even had to chop off some tree branches! We also saw the SkyLab.

 

The man behind me was rotating.

 

My grandfather worked on it. To hear more about what he did, see my post Interview with My Grandfather about Working on the Apollo Space Missions.

It was very fun there. I want to go again.