Posted in My Homeschool FAQs
Another fun thing we did while we were in Houston was go to....
Before we go any further you have to know that I am a BIG ole' geek when it comes to the Space program. Being a child of the 60's the whole going to the Moon thing was a HUGE part of my childhood. I was spellbound by it! I remember being 4 years old and seeing Neil Armstrong make that "giant leap for mankind" onto the surface of the moon. News from the Moon was constantly on TV and in the newspaper. It was an amazing to be grow up and imagine what the future could hold.
Then there was the whole I Dream of Jeannie show! LOL My sister and I watched every episode at least a zillion times! LOL I loved that show. I loved how glamorous the life of an Astronaut seemed. I loved seeing the outside shots of NASA and the rockets going up. It was all so different than the life of a little girl growing up in Kansas!
So going to NASA is a thrill for me! By far my favorite thing was getting to go to Mission Control! I mean I grew up watching men being sent to the moon from that room! WOW!!! (This is actually the second time we have been to NASA Houston. But, the first time we went my 2nd child was 6 weeks old and honestly I don't remember much from that trip! LOL We happened to be in Texas for a wedding and I HAD to go! In retrospect I got A LOT more out of it this time! )
Here are my excited children on the Tram ready to leave the Visitor Center and go on the tour of NASA!
Can you tell they share my enthusiasum? :^)Here is the entrance to the stairs for Mission Control. (I know right now you are all thinking...This is going to be a looooooooooooooooooooong post! LOL)
The reason I am posting this is to reminisce about all the stairs we had to climb to get to Mission Control! LOL I wish I could remember exactly how many there were, but I think that Mission Control is on the 8th floor. I can't imagine any building being build in this day and age where you had to WALK to the 8th floor! When I worked at ABC I worked on the 3rd floor and they had the stairs locked because it was too much of a liability to have people climbing stairs! LOL I wonder if that could be one of the reasons people where so much thinner in the 60's? (DUH!!!)Now for Mission Control....drum roll please...
I am telling you it was like time traveling into the past! They don't use this Mission Control anymore. They built a new one a few years ago. (I am guessing they have an elevator to get to it! LOL) But, this is the one used through the 1990's! One of the cool things we got to do in this room was listen to the people on the International Space Station talking to Mission Control in Houston live! COOL!!!Here is my oldest in front of a historic picture of the men in Mission Control celebrating when the first men landed on the moon.
We saw this on the way over to Mission Control.
They said they use liquid nitrogen to test everything that goes into space to see how it will react to the freezing temperatures.Here are the kids at the Astronaut Training Site.
All of the things in this room are life size modules that the Astronauts train in.
The kids LOVED this!
Here are the space suits they train in.
This is a full size trainer of the Space Shuttle minus it's wings so it will fit in the room.
We were lucky to see this one!
This is the new Mars Rover they are developing to send to Mars in the future. The tour guide said this was one of the 1st times he had seen it out on the lawn for testing and we were luck to get to see it. Very cool!This was something we didn't get to see the 1st time we went. They took us to a HUGE Building that houses a full size rocket including all it's engines. It was HUGE!!!
I never thought about these being so HUGE when I have seen them being launched on TV! It was mind boggling.Here are the engines on the back that launch it.
Here is the info on the engines above.
WOW!This is back at the visitor center. They have a awesome space themed kids climbing structure. My 4 year old had a blast here!
Then we checked out the hands on exhibits. In this one my kids were in the role of Mission Control.
The kid Mission Control talks to the kids in this space craft and they do experiments together over the computers.
Here is may daughter in the space craft working with another kid in Mission Control.
Here my 13 year old is learning about what things weigh on other planets.
More hands on learning! Can you tell he LOVED it!
Here he is learning how they dock in space with other space crafts.
There was a little light on the chair and you had to maneuver yourself to shine the light into a small hole to achieve a successful docking.While we were there my kids took their turn holding up the Moon! LOL
And this is me! As close to being an Astronaut as I will ever get! I like the suit, it is quite slimming! LOL
There are about 100 other pictures I could post from our day at NASA, but I think you get the idea...It was a GOOD day!
Posted by Alli from crumleyblog.com
