NASA Exploration On My Vacation

We were privileged to have basically unbridled access to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas last week thanks to Chris who you'll see in a picture or two. So I figured I'd give you some cool things I learned and some pictures from the trip. It was very interesting to see some of the sights inside the building as we walked around.

The very large space stations on the hangar floor that connected to the satellites in our orbit. These things are massive, but when viewed on pictures and in models you may have assembled as kids, seem very small in comparison to the rest of the rig. We were able to see the lunar rover used in Moon exploration. I was quite surprised to see that some of the parts used on the rover were actually commercial items. For example a Belkin router on board!

We saw the command center inside the space shuttle trainer, Robonaut 1(which looked ominously like Bobafet's robotic brother), and were included in a press shoot for the new Robonaut 2. Robonaut 2 has fingers that can can do small detailed tasks like tighten bolts.

We were able to walk into the old Mission Control Room and push buttons and take pictures AND check out the new Mission Control Room from the Conference Room. Where high ranking officials or the President of the United States would sit in times where executive conference were needed. What an intriguing day! It was a whole lot of fun!