Road Trip Day 13 - San Antonio - New Orleans (via Houston Space Centre)

Road Trip - Day 13 - January 13th.    San Antonio - New Orleans (via Houston Space Centre)

We're one day behind with our blog because of traveling and getting in very late last night. 

We left San Antonio quite early as we wanted to stop off at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Centre in Houston. Another clear day for traveling, and getting warmer by the mile. How many times we have pumped gas is no longer something we are counting. It's interesting that some gas stations have novelties - but very rarely do they have car washes - so our car is quite dirty at the moment. 

I did manage to take on a steer and try to wrestle it to the ground - after filling up with gas (the car, not me!)

We were surprised that we had not seen an oil derrick in this Texas Oil State, but just west of Houston, we saw our first one. 

First sighting of an oil derrick

Now, I'm not a great believer in conspiracy theories, but that was severely put to the test today when trying to find the Space Centre. You'd think that such a high profile visitor attraction, there would be direction signs all over the place once you hit Houston???   Not so!  It's almost impossible to find any signage at all, and when you see it, they're so small that it's so easy to miss them. Consequently, we had passed the turn-off from the Freeway by 15 minutes before we stopped at a service centre and asked someone! 

City of Houston Skyline

Finally arriving there, we were not disappointed. The sheer size of the facility and the various replicas of space rockets left us in awe. 

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center - Houston 

Shuttle Tour Tram

An extremely long corridor shows the size of the facility that it overlooks

Replica of Saturn V

And we thought Canada had it cold!

Mark in front of the blasting ends of Saturn V Replica

Future vehicles for human-occupied travelling on Mars

Original Mission Control Centre

Space Vehicle Mockup Facility 

 Contrary to popular opinion, there is no simulation of gravity-free environment for training purposes as it is impossible (at the moment) to reproduce that reality on Earth. Instead, they fill a huge tank with water and create an environment which is reasonably similar and which gives astronauts practice at functioning in a weightless condition. 

Original Control Centre - where the first moon landing was overseen

The capsule - the only part which returns to Earth intact

The tour guide was very knowledgeable and personable. One of the interesting facts he shares was that this robot (shown below) could turn the page of a book without tearing the page, and that it could type out a long paragraph on an iphone without making any errors or auto-corrects. Try it for yourself!

Advance Robotics

It was a very long drive and I'm glad we had our e-shots to keep us going. 

By the time we arrived at our hotel in New Orleans, it was very late and so sleep beckoned - and we didn't argue with it!


Choices for Health 

http://happyfitandfree.com/