The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center

It was a rainy day on Galveston Island so we decided to spend it at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. When we left the Adventure Bus the rain wasn't bad but here is the view from our car window just before we exited the highway:

YIKES!!

Fortunately Houston drivers are pretty sensible. Everyone slowed down and there were no accidents. Not like Toronto or New York!


The Space Center was fun and interesting. It would take three blog posts to tell you all about it and that would be boring so here are a few of the highlights.

We took a tram tour throughout the Space Center grounds with stops at three major points of interest.

The original Mission Control. We walked up 87 stairs to see it. The present day Mission Control was one floor down and not open to the public.They sent a man to the moon from this spot:

On the tip of this rocket, housed in a building of it's own:

Saturn V Rocket

The Astronaut Training Center (billed as the world's largest classroom by our tour guide) was really interesting. It was huge but what was really impressive to me is the number of countries working on the “next generation” of space exploration vehicles:

While these vehicles are developed space exploration continues on the existing space station with people being ferried there by Russian space vehicles:

Which looked pretty scary to me. It is very large but looks like a big cement ball.

Meanwhile, in Houston they are working to create a vehicle that can take us beyond the moon to other planets and asteroids. Called Orion they had two of these experimental vehicles in the training center:

Plus there was a vehicle designed to land on these far away space objects:

And, of great interest to the Canadians in our group, the Canadarm was there:

And as a compliment to the Canadarm they are working on a space robot:

The top part of this robot is pretty much done. It's fingers can do many things, including turn the pages of a book. The plan is to send it out to do a lot of things that people currently do and some that are very dangerous for people to do.

The Tram Tour alone took a lot of time but I really recommend you take it. Fascinating!

I apologize that the pictures above are not as clear as they should be but all, except the Saturn V rocket, were taken through glass.

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