Day 3:

Much like the day before, we had another early start. By 7:30 am we were already in the mini-buses heading for Space Centre Houston. It was a massive museum that followed the journey of manned spaceflight; from the Mercury and Gemini projects all the way through to the Orion Capsule (the capsule that will one day put men on Mars). For me, this was one extreme history lesson and, with Mike playing the tour guide, I learnt more than I could from any textbook or web page.

 

Perhaps my favourite part of the tour was been able to walk though a full scale replica of SkyLab, which was a first habitable structure in low earth orbit. It was here that you really began to appreciate the mastery of engineering and construct that when into to sending something into space that was, in reality, no smaller than me house!  Another great moment on the trip was seeing the full scale replica of the Orion I mentioned earlier, not just because of the groundbreaking technology involved, but because it was at that point that it hit me “I had dinner with the man that built that”! It just tied everything together in a really satisfying way.

 

I took so many laps of that museum; and every time, I found something new to ponder over. From the moon rock samples collected on the Apollo 14 mission to the sections of cockpit controls from the shuttle missions; it was just amazing from start to finish.

 

Before we left, we made a quick visit to the nearby rocket park. Inside this large building was one of the three remaining Saturn V rockets, the rocket that took the Apollo 11 crew to moon. The rocket was divided into its separate parts or ‘stages’; which really showed you how intricate and complex every single piece was. It was just fantastic to be alongside the piece of equipment that helped create perhaps human’s greatest achievement.

 

It was now that the inevitable shopping could begin. We were given an hour to go around the gift shops (where I bought plenty of presents for family) and to grab lunch for which we had, surprise, a burger and chips.

 

Later in the day, we were taken to a Wal-Mart. This was much more interesting than it might initially sound because it was our first true taste of how average Americans lived their day-to -day lives. The place was huge and you could genuinely buy anything! It made ASDA look more like a corner shop.

 

Along with this, we got to visit Baybrook Mall, a massive shopping centre full of designer retailers. This was, again, a great chance to see how Americans spent their time.

 

For dinner, we switched things up a little bit. This time, we went for an authentic Mexican restaurant where we could choose from some great fajitas, enchiladas and tacos! We were also lucky enough to be greeted by more guests. I got to speak to Michelle, an employee at Lockheed Martin (a contractor working with NASA) we oversees the projects the company works on; including the Orion! It was interesting to find out about how NASA is structured and to what extent politics factor into to how projects get green lit and cancelled (which help me understand what led to the cancellation of the Constellation project) and, as well, just how strict deadlines are in an industry expensive as this.

 

After hours of chatting, we returned to our hotel for some sleep.