Trip to Houston Day 4 Part 2

We started our day on the tram tour to mission control because that's what all the reviews said to do and they were correct. We didn't wait.

This is the actual control room that was used for all the Apollo missions...even Apollo 11, which was the one when they landed on the moon. They are getting it ready for the golden anniversary. Can you believe it has almost been 50 years since we landed on the moon?

We went by the cemetery and memorial for astronauts. The memorial was on the other side, which President Bush said to put in. This was for the astronauts that died on Challenger and Columbia missions.

There is our tour guide, Bill, who is a retired NASA rocket scientist. He figured out what the best fuel would be for the rockets. We had some questions for him afterwards. He was is super smart and very entertaining...so we filled out a review on him and gave it to guest services because I feel people who do a really good job should get recognition since we tend (as a society) to only say anything when it is negative. When I turned it in, they asked if I wanted to speak to a manager. I told  them no, that it was a positive feedback review...she was shocked.

Inside the airplane that help Independence. You have to use the controls to get the shuttle to line up with the airplane.

Inside the shuttle

We watched a presentation on how astronauts live in space later on and the described a lot of things, but the one thing that was most interesting for the boys was how they go to the bathroom. They filter their pee and then  they drink it.

We found this to be very interesting.

We took the tram Astronaut training tour. We planned on doing the tours back to back, but my kid who gets hangry was very hangry so we had to eat lunch right after the first tour, so you know at 10:40 we ate lunch. Yep, that's how life goes sometimes.

They told us on the tram on our way that we needed to be quiet because this is a government owned building and there are employees hard at work. They will kick us out if we are too loud. Then I saw these employees hard at work. Ummmmm.

Orion is the next mission that they are working on. They also had Space X in there too.

This is the Robonaut that they are working on. They want to send them to Mars because they can take the elements better then humans, don't need food, etc. It can turn a sheet of paper without ripping it, so it is pretty good. The list goes on. 

On the tram I was talking to one of the other people because it sounded like he knew a lot about NASA. He was in the airline industry, but his buddy was an astronaut. Then we found out this other family next to us has a relative that lived about 1/2 mile from us back home. Small world? 

On our way back to the hotel it started to rain. People in Texas are one of the worst drivers in the rain. It blows my mind. Several will turn on their hazards and go super slow. We do get crazy rain where it is very hard to see, but still it is weird.