Captains log.... tripdate 060618

Get you popcorn and sit down- because this will be a long one.

Up and early excited to see Mission Control today. We signed the big girls up for the Level 9 tour. Pricy, but worth it if you are a huge space geek such as us. Unfortunately for us- you have to be 14 to go, so Mom and Dad stayed back with the littles. More on their trip in a few....

Our day got off to a rough start. Megan had 3 different melt downs, that involved NASA personnel’s assistance. She however scored candy and stickers 😢 while I calmed her- Dad and Luke checked out a talk with a Moon Walk trainer.

Space Center Houston offers 2 tram tours as part of admission, by the time we loaded the first Megan was back to normal and we were able to enjoy the rest of the day. The first tour we did took us to MOCR (Mission Operations Control Room). Here we were able to sit in the observation room outside the Apollo/Gemini mission control room. History happened in this room. They controlled the moon landing of Apollo 11 and the near tragedy of Apollo 13 and the tragedy of Apollo 1. We were excited to hear they are restoring the room (due to decades of smoke damage) in preparation for the July 2019 50th anniversary of the Moon Walk.

You will have seen this if you watched the movie Apollo 13, or basically any documentary of any Apollo mission. Orange seats, ash trays. Ahh the late 60’s and early 70’s.

The next tram tour took us to the Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility, where we were able to view actual work being done on robotics such as Valkyrie (a 6’2” robot), a prototype of Orion (the capsule that will take man to Mars) and the next generation of rovers with built in space suits. The cool part about this building is we watched a robotics movie at COSI a while back and they highlighted all of this in the movie. It was so cool to see this all in real life even if it was from an observation room.

We then when to the Saturn V building, still the most powerful rocket to date- one of 3 of the 20 left. Of course we saw the one at Kennedy and we get to see #3 on Sunday in Huntsville!

After the tours, we continued to play and learn in the space center exhibits. We closed out the day with a show/talk on living in the International Space Station. Of course they needed a volunteer and I had a very eager 10 year old they couldn’t pass up. Luke got to climb into a space bed, do a space workout and see a space kitchen/bathroom. He was rewarded with his very own bottle of recycled urine.

So now to tie in the girls experience. Remember that first tram tour to Mission Control? Yeah- they got to go IN the room. Also, they were able to observe the ISS Mission Control Room and the standard Mission Control. All of which are manned 24/7.

Remember my observations of the robotics center? Yeah- they got to go ON to the floor and walk amongst the robotics. They went IN the prototype of Orion. They got up close to the rovers, Valkyrie, etc.

More so, they toured the Space Mission Simulation Facility, which houses the Shuttle Mission Simulators. They were able to sit in the simulator. In seats that EVERY astronaut who few a shuttle mission sat in...
because if their excitement over Atlantis- the tour guide took them personally up to a little private viewing of a piece of Atlantis they have- the “United States” fabric.

Lunch in the NASA cafeteria and oh yeah- they ran into Glynn Lunney, Flight Director for the Gemini and Apollo programs. A NASA legend. Google him.

We ended the day with meeting our old friends Jason, MerriLynn and Devon Sayre for dinner at TBone Toms where we had the biggest mozzarella sticks know to man.
After which a fun night on the Kemah Boardwalk. The girls came together to dance on the Boardwalk, and since the ride operator didn’t tear their tickets the girls got to ride several adrenaline pumping rides! Megan showed us all her ghetto side and how to give the bird....

Total Miles: 23
High Temp: 93