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Thursday Feb 21st 2013 – Space Centre –
Houston
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| SPACE SHUTTLE "DISCOVERY" |
What a great day. The Space
Centre was not as far as we thought and we were there by 10:30am. It opens at
10 am, so it was not too busy at that point. We got our bearings and headed for
the tram tour before it got too busy.
The first stop was the astronaut training facility. It was huge… several
football fields in size and we were able to view it from a walkway gallery.
There were modules, moon vehicles,
simulators etc etc.. quite fascinating. After that we drove through the
compound, past several buildings, housing, development, engineering, research
etc, including the original mission control building, and then stopped at the
huge structure that houses the complete Saturn space rocket. I don’t know how long
it is, but it was truly magnificent to see it. At one juncture, we could climb
up and see how intricate the wiring was in the end of the rocket. Beyond the
comprehension of us mere mortals.
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| ASTRONAUT TRAINING FACILITY |
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| GREEN ROUND POD IS RUSSION BUILT DECOMPRESSION UNIT |
Outside were other
decommissioned space modules and rockets. Back in the Space visitors center we
went from theatre to theatre watching various short lectures and films on the
development and growth of the space program. The most impressive, being the
mission museum and vault, where we saw and touched the actual Appollo 17 capsule and where we could see
various samples of rocks gathered from the moon’s surface. We were privileged
to actually touch a rock from the moon.
By the time we realized it,
we had been at the centre for over 5 hours, before we became totally ‘spaced
out’ (pun intended) and decided that we needed to tear ourselves away. While we
totally enjoyed the experience, we both shuddered at the thought of coming here
during the height of the summer tourist season… the crowds were not too bad for
us, but the nature of the place would make it hard going when it is busy. A piece of advice would be to get there
before it opens and when you get in, go straight to the tram tour… it is not to
be missed and the lines can be VERY long.
The rest of the centre is made of up large theatres and displays which
are more capable of handling large crowds.
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| COUPLE OF SPACE EXPLORATION UNITS WITH ROBONAUT ON RIGHT |
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| ROBONAUT DEVELOPMENT (FIRST ONE WITH LEGS) |
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| SATURN V |
After the Space Centre we
decided to go to a mattress store and look for a new mattress. So we went to
‘The Mattress Firm” South of Houston and found a good mattress. We hope to pick
it up tomorrow when they get their shipment.
To celebrate our new purchase we decided to eat dinner out as we were
hungry having skipped lunch. We checked out “Shrimp and Stuff’ which someone
had recommended, but it turned out to be more a deep fried/fast food type of
fish restaurant and we didn’t fancy it so we headed to Gaido’s on the Sea
Wall…. WOW!!! The food was amazing. It is Oyster and Flounder season in the
Gulf and we had Oysters to start. I have never seen such huge oysters and the taste
was out of this world. Lightly baked with garlic and parmesan. Derek had a
whole flounder stuffed with bay shrimp and Janice had Fresh Snapper, covered
with crawfish in a creamy Cajun sauce. All the fish served at this restaurant
is fresh from the gulf and never frozen. It is truly fabulous. Treat yourself
if you ever come down this way. After
dinner we headed back to the RV and watched the final show in season 3 of
Downton Abbey. Love that show!!
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| SATURN V |
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| SATURN V - HUGE!! |
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| PART OF FRONT NOSE SECTION (ALL THE WIRES!!!!) |
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| THE INTREPID ADVENTURERS |
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| I WOULD GO IF THEY WOULD LET ME111 |
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| FINALLY GOT US A PICTURE OF A TEXAS LONGHORN -YES IT WAS IN THE SPACE CENTRE GROUNDS |
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| SPACE CAPSULE... DEFINITELY A LITTLE COMPLICATED!! |
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| THE ACTUAL APOLLO 17 CAPSULE -- ONLY ROOM FOR 3 SEATED |
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| APOLLO 17 |
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| MOON ROCKS IN VAULT |
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| MOON ROCK |
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| EXERCISE AREA IN SPACE STATION |
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| TOUCHING A MOON ROCK |
Tuesday Feb 26th - Moody Gardens and Joe's Crab Shack
