Johnson space center, Houston

Yesterday, my hosts in this city, Ronald and Glo, brought me to the Johnson space center in Houston, Texas. This facility maintains the control system for NASA, as well as training ground for astronauts. I was very curious to see the rockets used by NASA in the past, especially the Apollo where 3 American astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Collins were the first humans to set foot on the moon, sometime in July  1969.

This is the entrance to the facility, replica of two small airplanes.



There was an audio tour of the control panel during Apollo trips to the moon, but it did not interest me much. Then the tour continued.

This time, to the real rockets. Here’s the smaller rocket



And the bigger one.


But the “main event” is the visit to Saturn V, a huge multi-stage liquid-fuel expendable rocket used by NASA’s Apollo and Skylab programs in the late 60s to mid-70s. Here’s the view from the outside.



And inside, a giant reclining space vehicle is displayed. View from the rear.



And view from the front.



A visitor from Manila posing at Saturn V’s rear rockets :-)



Beside the giant rocket are pictures and brief chronology of NASA’s space programs during that time.



I like these 3 guys – Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. Hoopss, there’s a 4th man, a non-astronaut :-)


Btway, another "moon walker" who arrived at the moon via Apollo 17 was Harrison "Jack" Schmitt. I have met him twice, in NYC last March 2009 and last week in Chicago, both during the Heartland Institute's 2nd and 4th International Conference on Climate Change, respectively. He's a big and tall man, very friendly and most importantly, does not believe in the man-made warming scam.

At the main entrance after getting the ticket (about $20 perhead), there are play areas for children, like this one.



Or a huge game, “clone wars”.

Thank you Glo, Ronald, for that wonderful tour.