A Go For Liftoff

Day 103 - Houston, TX - Cloudy Low 40's:

Today we overslept a bit and missed our hotel breakfast. Instead we ate in the room. We headed out around 11am headed for Mission Control. We booked tickets to the Houston Space Center...as in "Houston, we have a problem". It was quite a day. We started with a tram tour that took us onto the NASA - Johnson Space Center campus. We started at mission control.

While it is no longer the mission control room, it was until 1996. We sat in the room where every President from 1963 through 1996 sat an watched space flight, where Queen Elizabeth visited, and most importantly, the loved ones of those men and women aboard the spaceships. This mission control was in charge during that famous Apollo 11 mission landing on the moon, the famous Apollo 13 mission (yes the movie was real kids), and sadly the Challenger mission that never got to space. In the room they have every patch from every mission controlled in the room on the wall. In addition they have two in flight pieces of memorabilia. A flag from Apollo 13 and a mirror also from Apollo 13.

While in the room we learned a few neat things about what and who controls the room:

About the Flight Director:
- During a mission the flight director has more power than ANYONE. This includes the head of NASA, the flight crew, and the President. What he says goes.
- To be a flight director you must be able to run three different aspects of the mission control center.
- You must be VERY well educated.
- To become a flight director you have to be UNANIMOUSLY chosen by the current flight directors. There are currently about 30 flight directors.

About the Capcom:
- Capcom means Capsule Communication.
- There are MANY people in the mission control room, the ONLY person to talk to the astronauts is the Capcom.
- In order to be in the Capcom position you MUST be an astronaut. This is because astronauts have a language all there own including acronyms and commands. Thus having a person who speaks the "language" is best. Also, as I mentioned there are MANY people with LOTS of messages and commands to send to space, and each person thinks that their message is the most important. Who better to prioritize the messages than a fellow astronaut?

The Red Phone:
- This phone called the Pentagon directly. You see for many years the Navy picked up astronauts once they landed in the ocean. The flight director needed direct communication to give vital information.

Other Info:
- The remaining people in the control room do the work to make sure the flight crew is on track and safe. This includes the flight surgeon, the flight dynamics office, and the guidance, navigation, and control specialists.
- You have to have a great MATH background for many of these positions. Prior to advances in calculators these people often used a slide rule for calculations...look it up...they had to take a whole class on how to use it!

MOST FASCINATING:
- When Apollo 11, 13, and many other missions were controlled out of this room, NASA had five computers located in the building. Each of these computers was the size of a CLASSROOM and had only 256 bytes of memory. To put that in perspective, they sent men to the moon using computers that had less memory than you camera uses to take ONE digital photo.

From Mission Control we made our way to the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. This building is where the training takes place for upcoming missions and astronauts. Here they have mockups of each part of the International Space Station, the Canadarm (the tool that moves big items in space), and the Space Shuttles. The space shuttle mockups can be rotated and moved so as give the astronauts an idea of what it will be like in each position. They also had a bungee system that allows the astronauts to work while moving around. The Space Center does not have a weightless training facility (it is impossible to create this we were told) instead they use a tool much like an air hockey table that makes it feel as close to what space will feel like as possible.

Our last stop was the Rocket Center. This was the most eye opening spot on the trip. We saw SATURN V the largest and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational life. To say it was big is about the biggest understatement possible. It was GIGANTIC! They have the actual rocket intended for Apollo 18 in the building. Apollo 18 never took place as funding for the program was cut. Outside they have a number of other rockets that we could get close to. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to really explore the outdoor ones because we spent so much time inside with the SATURN.

We returned to the space center and made our way directly to a presentation called "Living In Space". Here we learned a bit about life on the space ship. The astronauts exercise daily. They have bikes, treadmills, and weights. Of course it requires a bit more work as they have to be strapped into everything they do otherwise they float away. Sleeping is interesting. They have what look like bags that they sleep in that are attached to the wall. They get in the bag, zip it up, strap themselves down, and sleep away. It's funny because all sides of the space craft look the same. There is no top or bottom so you could have an astronaut sleeping on each wall of the ship at the same time! We also learned the important stuff like how they go to the bathroom and how they shower. First the bathroom. In order to go, they open the curtain, sit on the seat, strap in their feet, lock in their legs (they have bars that lower and raise on top of their thighs), they turn on the suction, and do their business. They also have a special tube for pee that they must hookup...it too has suction. The #2 bathroom materials are destroyed (somehow) the #1 materials though are filtered and cleaned and YUP you guessed it returned for drinking water. The shower used to be a process where they would wash and suction the water as without suction the water goes no where. The astronauts complained about this though because it took to long...upwards of an hour! Now they use over-sized baby wipes...or something like them. It is easier and faster. NASA has also created a no rinse shampoo that you lather and then towel out. For teeth it's the same. NASA created an edible toothpaste...not everyone like to swallow the toothpaste though and so you can spit it into a towel...no water though. Lastly we learned a little bit about eating. The athletes have space food of course! Food that is either ready to eat or just needs hot water.

From "Living In Space" we checked out some of the fun stuff including weighing yourself on different planets. Then we went into the "Blast Off Theater". It was pretty cool. We felt like were actually taking off because of how loud it was in the little room. We then entered another room where we learned about the current missions going on in space. Right now there are 11 astronauts in space working on projects at the International Space Station. We got to learn about each astronaut individually, what they do each day, and different contingency plans NASA has in case of an emergency. We got to look at the current mission control center via a video feed. (If there are NO MISSIONS you get to visit the new mission control during the tram tour). A neat thing is that the astronauts are woken each day by the mission control center. It is a unique awakening because each day they wake up to a song chosen by the family of a particular member. Today they were waking up to Beautiful Day by U2 for Kay Hire...the only woman in space right now.

It was then onto the Starship Gallery. Here we saw artifacts from travel to space. The biggest draw was the collection of MOON ROCKS. They have the largest collection of moon rocks anywhere in the world. Ben and I even got to touch a moon rock....we were practically in space! This gallery also has two command modules from early space flights and models of different tools.

The Space Center has a large exhibit about risk taking. I thought about my students the entire time as it dealt with A LOT OF MATH!! Fun math. Probability, games, and chance. They had activities that you would try when thinking about risks that you take each day. We each tried a number of activities including lying on a bed of nails!! We also took some time to try landing our own space ship. There are varying levels of control/difficulty...Ben chose the hardest and never crashed...I chose the easiest and crashed four times before landing...let's just say I shouldn't be a pilot!

Our last stop was a film called "To Become an Astronaut". This was a great video about the long journey that it takes to get to space. There is a lot to learn, know, and understand before every taking off in the ship. We saw the astronauts in training...where they are given more disasters than they will ever see in real life (we hope). The theory is that if they can overcome these HUGE challenges on the ground, then any minor one they face in space will be easy to handle. It was kind of funny to watch from behind the scenes as the training staff tried to think of anything they could to ruin the mission for the astronauts while the astronauts do everything they can to maintain control. The video also discusses the difficulty that comes with leaving your family to go to space. Each astronaut has their own struggle with the idea of putting their life at risk and leaving their family but they do it for the betterment of all of us here on Earth.

By the time we got out of the movie, it was closing time at the space center. It was a great day and we certainly learned a lot. I now wish we had taken the time to go to Kennedy Space Center when we were in Florida! Oh well though we will certainly have another chance!

After we left the space center we made our way to the Hickory Hollow, a real Texas cafe! It was only about 28 miles but it took over an hour! Big city traffic...what a pain! We had some GREAT food and got to listen to some great live bluegrass music. Ben enjoyed the BBQ food but says the ribs weren't as good as Gug's...I don't think anyone can compete. It was fun though and we even had our drinks out of mason jars!

We are now back at the hotel watching the opening ceremonies. The Olympics are such an incredible event and we didn't want to miss anything. It was exciting to see Juila Clukey a member of the US Olympic team and West Gardiner native march in with the team!! We can learn so much from the pride, dedication, and commitment of these amazing athletes as well as about the spirit of competition and respect for all people.

I hope that everyone is safe and doing well tonight. We are headed to San Antonio tomorrow evening. We'll right soon! Love you!