NASA

Friday, September 14, 2012

 Jack had us up had 5:30 due to ominous clouds, thunder and lightning so took the tent down in the dark.  Oh, by the way, it never rained but good to have down anyway.  Walked on the beach for an hour with beautiful sunrise. 

Showered with the mosquitoes in the hottest shower ever with no cold water running out of the spit.  Took off  with an idea to head to NASA space center.  Luckily it was on the south side of Houston, as Houston has 8 million people and traffic is horrid.  Arrived at NASA and went on the tram tour first to the Johnson command center and mission control for the space shuttle for the past 30 years.

  As we know, the last space shuttle returned in 2011 as the International Space Station is completed and its mission recently has been to shuttle parts to build the space station.  The space shuttle replica was outside the space center (Endeavor). The fine people of Houston are upset that the Endeavor will be housed in Los Angeles.

 We then went to mockup building where the astronauts train and simulate space environment and living.  They are working on a robot with better hand control than humans with an opposable thumb.  We are working with Russia, Italy, Canada on these endeavors.

For our Russian followers, making up 18% of those following our blog

  

We also went to a building that showed the rocket replicas that powered the Apollo program with history on Apollo 1 – 17.  In the main NASA center we saw  and touched moon rocks, saw program on the details of living in space such as eating, toileting, sleeping.  We learned about all the advantages to doing experiments in space (antigravity research).  For example certain cells can be grown in space for medical research that cannot be grown on earth.  We learned of the Orion program which is designed to go back to the moon, to further asteroids and to Mars eventually.  The first launch is scheduled for 2014.  There is a flag that is raised everyday that someone is in  space and has been raised since November 2001 and continues to be raised as astronauts continue to man the ISS. We saw canisters of liquid Nitrogen that is at 320 below 0 Fahrenheit. 

Orion

Stayed until 4:00, too late to camp so found a motel close by.  After we settled in we realized it was a little sketchy, or should I say a lot sketchy.  I felt safer sleeping in my tent with alligators, fire ants, west nile mosquitoes and venomous snakes.  When we drove up it seemed like a fairly nice hotel, with a nice pool, and lobby.   It was right off the freeway so we didn’t really check out the neighborhood.   The clues started unfolding, 1) got to the room and the top safety bolt had been busted off by someone pushing in the door, 2) I am out in the parking lot talking to Mallory when a man asked me for a cigarette and then when I told him I didn’t have one he walked upstairs to the level of the hotel above us, 3) when our key wouldn’t work in the door we went to the lobby and the front door was locked and we had to go to a small glass window like the old bank teller windows, 4) I read on the door of our room a warning to lock cars, do not leave valuables and the hotel is not responsible for lost or stolen items.

I started freaking out, considered leaving or changing rooms, but instead we packed everything up from the car and barricaded the door with a chair, took a Benadryl and went to bed.