Flurry of Touristing before Departing the Texas Gulf Coast

 

The time for us to depart Livingston is rapidly approaching and we still have things we want to do and see.  So we're getting some timed entry tickets for the Johnson Space Center.  Even though by all appearances COVID is something that is being learned to live with, the Space Center is still following guidelines to minimize crowds.  They only have a certain number of tickets per day and each of those tickets are timed for entry, spread across the whole day.  Visitors are not limited to how long they can stay once they are in, they just can't come in before their scheduled time.  We're going to see and do everything we can so we snagged tickets for the opening hour and then went straight to the front desk to sign up for the different guided tours.

After that there was plenty of time to take in the main gallery where there were displays of actual space capsules, satellites and moon lander and large scale models of space stations.

The exhibits, many of them interactive, were very well done.  You could tell everything was well used but nothing looked run down.  Hours melted away exploring this place.  The guided tours were a whole different ball game.  You were taken by tram to active operations and toured within feet of rocket scientists doing their thing.

One of the tours we took was to the original mission control room for the Apollo landing on the moon in 1969.  The room used for that mission control has been decommissioned but it was in a still active building that was humming with work.  When being taken to the historic control room we were warned multiple times to not talk and walk softly or risk being booted from the building.  They were serious about not disturbing the folks at work.  After ascending a lot of stairs we entered the gallery to the fabled room.  We were seated in the actual chairs that the astronauts wives and dignitaries occupied during the mission.  Across the back of the room were the "phone booths" that the wives could use to communicate to their astronaut husbands when time allowed.

Before us, on the other side of a glass wall, was an immaculately restored control room.  Everything, every console, chair, video screen, even notebooks, headsets and coffee cups had been expertly restored to the exact appearance of that 16th day of July in 1969.

After explaining the restoration project they began running a simulation of the events as they unfolded over the next days.  All screens displayed actual, authentic information and TV broadcasts of the moment of the moon landing, "One small step...." and splashdown back on Earth.

Immaculate restoration, right down to the cigarette butts in the ashtray.

THE moment.  Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon via live
black and white video transmission (on monitor in upper-right corner).

I'm giving away my age here but I have vivid memories of the above exact scene as I watched sitting on the floor of my parents living room.

After returning from the mission control room tour we were back in the main building and continuing our exploration of the museum.  There are a tremendous amount of artifacts and displays to take in.

Between being there mid-week and their timed entry strategy the crowds were minimal.

Displays were extremely well done.

 Next on the guided tour list was the training facility.  This place was awesome.  It is definitely not a museum, it is the everyday workplace for dozens of scientists and engineers.  In this building are full-scale mock-ups of spacecraft and space station modules.  Astronauts come here to train for their missions as well as scientists and engineers developing technology for space travel.

Artemis lunar landing craft.  This is the next space vehicle that will put boots on the moon.
Check out the scale of this thing.  It is standing over three stories tall!

Engineers messing with the tourists.

Not science fiction!  This is a real-deal, big as a man, autonomous robot 
being developed right before our eyes.

Every module on the space station has a full-scale mock up in the training facility. 
This picture is capturing only about half of the whole room.  The interior of this 
room is a tall four stories.

Our last guided tour of the day was a visit to the Saturn V rocket building.

Not a cartoon.  This painting mimics the rocket in the building.

We've all seen these things on TV and in movies but those images just can't project the massiveness that is is evidence when standing next to one.

All off this:

Just to get this little thing off the ground.

Yeah, I know.  These pictures don't convey the enormity we were experiencing.

Next up was the space shuttle Independence.  Again, not a model.  This is the actual multi-missions to Earth orbit shuttle.  And as a bonus it was mounted piggy-back on one of the 747 jumbo jets that would ferry shuttles from their California landing zone to the launch facility in Florida.

It is more than a static outdoor display.  Both the airplane and 
shuttle have extensive museums inside.

Never thought I would get this close to a space shuttle.  Especially one that was configured for flight.

Both the shuttle and the 747 had been modified to house museums and allow visitors to get within inches of the flight deck of each.

There's more but unless you are really into this stuff you may have already quit reading by now.  I'll stop.

All in all it was a really nice way to spend the day.  The last few weeks have been so different from the four years preceding them.  It is nice getting back to doing new things.