We survived the night of storms, and might have slept through it had we not had the tornado warnings blaring from our phones. In case you haven’t heard it, the severe weather warning on a cell phone sounds like the prison klaxons that warn of a jailbreak; there’s no sleeping through that. Because we couldn’t even hear ourselves talk between the wind and the rain on the camper’s metal shell, we just watched on our phones as the tornado warnings passed us, and when we were out of the red zone and no longer at risk of being jarred awake again, we went back to sleep.
In the morning, when it looked like we were clear to travel, we decided to head towards Texas. We didn’t really have a route planned as we headed west, but since the storm front had brought cooler temperatures, we decided to head basically south. Our next planned stop was Space Center Houston, which we knew we couldn’t do in a day, so we stopped for a hike at the Acadiana Nature Station Park in Lafayette, LA. Due to the rains the night before we couldn’t take the hike we’d planned from the trail map, but the park had plenty of boardwalks and canal paths so we got a good 4-mile walk in before heading for a Walmart in Jennings, LA, which is about mid way between Lafayette and Lake Charles. We heard the same I-10 traffic at the Walmart as we’d heard at the brewery, although the brewery was still better since Walmart doesn’t have crawfish poutine.
We left the Walmart fairly early and headed for the Space Center. I’d found a city park with hiking very near the Space Center on All Trails, so that was our goal. We did a drive by of the Space Center before heading to the park, which was a really nice cement trail loop around a series of small lakes in the middle of the city neighborhood. Since Houston had suffered even more from the storm than Louisiana, the cement trail was a very nice thing, and it was also very nice to see all the people out walking, with and without dogs, on a pleasant evening. We finished our walk and headed for a Cabela’s about six miles away, where we spent a quiet night before heading for the Space Center in the morning after another morning walk around the park.
Tom and I were both really happy we decided to visit the Space Center. We were there shortly after it opened, and stayed all day. Everyone we had talked to had given it rave reviews, but having been to Kennedy Space Center in Florida where the rockets are launched, we weren’t sure how interesting a space center in the middle of a city would be. As it turned out, it was very interesting. It may have helped that we were there on the anniversary of the Apollo I tragedy, and one day before the anniversary of the Challenger tragedy, and just a week or so before the Columbia tragedy, so the theme of the day among the tour guides was how much actual sacrifice is part of this program, and the scope of the program to minimize that risk.
We walked into the main building, which has a bunch of changing exhibits. We decided to immediately sign up for one of the two tram tours being offered that day, which take you to the real Johnson Space Center on the other side of the road. The tram tour didn’t leave for a half hour or so, so we wandered the main building and looked at the exhibits about the Artemis project of going to Mars, and an evolution of space suits. The half hour passed very quickly, and we got on the tram tour which took us to the place where the astronauts are training, which besides real astronauts also has mock ups of all of the space vehicles and equipment used to train the astronauts. After that, we went to the museum where real rockets are on display, including a real Saturn V which was recovered and reconstructed to be displayed at Space Center Houston.
That tour was so interesting that we signed up for the other tram tour as soon as we returned to the Visitor Center. The other tour didn’t leave for a couple of hours, so we had time to tour constant exhibits, which include a realistic mock-up of a space shuttle, as well as the actual 747 used to transport it. One of the real SpaceX rockets is also on display, and while you can’t go inside that like you can the space shuttle and the 747, it’s pretty impressive to see a rocket that still has scorch marks on it from its many trips into space. The exhibits inside the building include a full-size Skylab model with artifacts from the real Skylab, as well as artifacts and historical exhibits about the International Space Station, the Apollo project, and all of the other NASA projects since the very beginning of space exploration.
We had just enough time to finish that part of the museum before our second tram tour, which was a trip to the Mission Control Center which was in use for the Apollo XI moon landing. The Mission Control Center has been painstakingly preserved to be exactly as it was when the first moon landing was made, and the Space Center does a wonderful program where all the screens light up and change and you can hear the audio between the astronauts and Mission Control as the moon landing was made and man first set foot on the moon. I remember, as a kid, watching what was televised from that room, and while it looks like what I remember, it seemed like it should have been bigger.
All of the tours and exhibits were very thought provoking for us. We’re an age where we remember most of the events that are explained as the history of the space program, and while we were vague on a lot of the details, we decided it was because this isn’t history that we learned in school, but is history that we lived and perceived as whatever age we were when it happened, and those perceptions changed as we grew up. When one of the tour guides was talking about the Apollo I tragedy where three astronauts were killed in a fire, I didn’t remember any details of what happened, but I suddenly remembered my space obsessed engineer father crying as he watched the news. I also remembered sitting on my father’s lap in the easy chair in front of the TV to watch the moon landing, as my father explained that this was history that would change mankind, which my 7-year old self didn’t really get. Of course when Challenger exploded, and then again when Columbia exploded, Tom and I both remember exactly where we were and what we were doing. I think because we have lived most of the era of space exploration, we never really thought about the continuous forward progress of the overall program, which is brought sharply into focus by the displays and experiences at the Space Center. Right now, the focus is on re-establishing moon exploration in preparation for a trip to Mars, which could, if everything goes as planned, possibly happen in about 20 years. It’s conceivable that Tom and I could live to 80, which is how old we’ll be when it happens, and the thought that our lives will span the first man on the moon to the first man on Mars really puts the scope of the program in perspective - both for how quickly progress is made, and for how many generations must pursue the continued effort to achieve these major milestones.
We walked into the main building, which has a bunch of changing exhibits. We decided to immediately sign up for one of the two tram tours being offered that day, which take you to the real Johnson Space Center on the other side of the road. The tram tour didn’t leave for a half hour or so, so we wandered the main building and looked at the exhibits about the Artemis project of going to Mars, and an evolution of space suits. The half hour passed very quickly, and we got on the tram tour which took us to the place where the astronauts are training, which besides real astronauts also has mock ups of all of the space vehicles and equipment used to train the astronauts. After that, we went to the museum where real rockets are on display, including a real Saturn V which was recovered and reconstructed to be displayed at Space Center Houston.
That tour was so interesting that we signed up for the other tram tour as soon as we returned to the Visitor Center. The other tour didn’t leave for a couple of hours, so we had time to tour constant exhibits, which include a realistic mock-up of a space shuttle, as well as the actual 747 used to transport it. One of the real SpaceX rockets is also on display, and while you can’t go inside that like you can the space shuttle and the 747, it’s pretty impressive to see a rocket that still has scorch marks on it from its many trips into space. The exhibits inside the building include a full-size Skylab model with artifacts from the real Skylab, as well as artifacts and historical exhibits about the International Space Station, the Apollo project, and all of the other NASA projects since the very beginning of space exploration.
We had just enough time to finish that part of the museum before our second tram tour, which was a trip to the Mission Control Center which was in use for the Apollo XI moon landing. The Mission Control Center has been painstakingly preserved to be exactly as it was when the first moon landing was made, and the Space Center does a wonderful program where all the screens light up and change and you can hear the audio between the astronauts and Mission Control as the moon landing was made and man first set foot on the moon. I remember, as a kid, watching what was televised from that room, and while it looks like what I remember, it seemed like it should have been bigger.
All of the tours and exhibits were very thought provoking for us. We’re an age where we remember most of the events that are explained as the history of the space program, and while we were vague on a lot of the details, we decided it was because this isn’t history that we learned in school, but is history that we lived and perceived as whatever age we were when it happened, and those perceptions changed as we grew up. When one of the tour guides was talking about the Apollo I tragedy where three astronauts were killed in a fire, I didn’t remember any details of what happened, but I suddenly remembered my space obsessed engineer father crying as he watched the news. I also remembered sitting on my father’s lap in the easy chair in front of the TV to watch the moon landing, as my father explained that this was history that would change mankind, which my 7-year old self didn’t really get. Of course when Challenger exploded, and then again when Columbia exploded, Tom and I both remember exactly where we were and what we were doing. I think because we have lived most of the era of space exploration, we never really thought about the continuous forward progress of the overall program, which is brought sharply into focus by the displays and experiences at the Space Center. Right now, the focus is on re-establishing moon exploration in preparation for a trip to Mars, which could, if everything goes as planned, possibly happen in about 20 years. It’s conceivable that Tom and I could live to 80, which is how old we’ll be when it happens, and the thought that our lives will span the first man on the moon to the first man on Mars really puts the scope of the program in perspective - both for how quickly progress is made, and for how many generations must pursue the continued effort to achieve these major milestones.
Real astronauts in training!
One of the first rockets to go into space.
A real Saturn V rocket, used to launch the Apollo missions.
A realistic mock-up of a space shuttle, riding on top of an actual 747 that was used to move the shuttles.
A well-used SpaceX rocket which completed over 50 trips into space.
Mission Control, Houston. This is the control room for all of the Apollo missions. If you ever go to the Space Center, put this tour on your list.
Our Mission Control tram tour was the last tour of the day, so that was the end of our Space Center Houston day. Our tentative plan had been to head to Galveston to go to the beach, but because the weather was chilly and it was getting late, we decided to instead head towards San Antonio.