Johnson Space Center

Shuttle on top of Transporter

We can’t go to Houston with visiting the Johnson Space Center, where the astronauts train and the new Orion program is being run through its testing phases. We started by touring the Enterprise shuttle fitted atop its transporter aircraft. It was interesting to see the ideas and testing that went into this combination including wind tunnels and then using remote controlled models until they found a stable configuration (which required extra weight in the front of the plane). The tram tour included a visit to the Houston Command Center as well as one of the three remaining Saturn V rockets. 

View from the Space Station

The best part of the museum was about the International Space Station. We learned how they worked, slept, ate and went to the bathroom as well as the type of experiments they are running. We learned particularly about two types of experiments – the unique things that can be done in microgravity and experiments to help us spend more time in space. For example, Scott Kelley spent a year in space and we learned that he lost 2% of his bone mass every month. Osteoporosis is currently a real deterrent for long term space travel. Other experiments are learning how to grow food in space, currently they are looking at romaine lettuce and potatoes. They also showed how much damage that small pieces of metal or plastic can do to large blocks of metal when they collide at high speeds.

Orion Capsule

The next big space program is the Orion program – the new capsule looks 2-3 times larger than the Apollo capsule, the plan is to go to the moon, asteroids, and eventually Mars. The trip will take 2-3 years, 6 months each way in space plus time on Mars to wait for the Earth and Mars to align for the return trip. They are looking at various additional modules to provide room while in space, including an inflatable module, which is surprisingly resistant to space debris. We watched a great movie: The Journey into Space about this future exploration, followed by a fun demonstration of rocket science, including several interesting explosions with the warning: “don’t try this at home”.

Apollo Capsule

Finally, we had a quick review of past accomplishments, which included an Apollo capsule, Gemini 2 capsule, and the Apollo 17 capsule as well as moon rocks. They also had the lunar rover that was used for training here on earth. An interesting factoid we learned on the tour as that the moon has lots of Helium 3, enough that a shuttles worth of it could be used to power the entire USA for a year! Of course, we’d have to get it here. All in all, this had one of the best space museums I’ve been to!