League City, TX Day 2

Saturday, 5/23/2015
League City, TX
Houston Space Center

Our plans today were to head over to the Houston Space Center.  It is only about 5 miles or so away from us so it was a short drive.  There were a lot of people there but not as many as I expected for a Saturday during a 3 day weekend.  I had found some discount coupons while doing the laundry yesterday so we got in for half price.  Score!  This is what you see when you walk in -

Cool looking, isn't it?  Oh, I should back up.  This is what you see when you drive up and park -

Space Shuttle Independence

Now that is really impressive.

We decided to head directly to the tram tours.  When Bill and I were here before the tram tour was one big tour.  Now they have it broken into three separate tours.  We first took the red tour which takes you to the astronaut training facility and Rocket Park (actually all the tours take you to Rocket Park).  As most of you know the shuttle program is over but NASA is now working on a program to Mars.  It is known as Orion.

They still use this facility as the modules are mock-up of the International Space Station.  They also have modules for the Orion program.

At Rocket Park they have a Saturn 5 rocket.  This was the main rocket used for launching shuttle as well as the Gemini and Apollo programs

It is a really, really big rocket.

As we left Rocket Park you drive past a field of Texas Longhorns.  The land for the space center was donated by Rice University and they keep the Longhorns here for study.

After we finished the red tour we stopped for lunch in the visitor center.  It was a pretty good lunch.  Bill had a BBQ beef sandwich and I had a chicken salad sandwich.  The prices were good and so was the food.

After lunch we headed to the tram again to take the blue tour.  This one takes you to Mission Control and the Space Park.  We don't plan on getting off at the park but will head directly back to the visitor center.  Anyway, they have remodeled Mission Control.  After the final shuttle launch they updated it for the Mars Orion program.  Here is the old Mission Control and the new one.

Big difference, isn't it?

The others had to head back to the rigs to walk the dogs but Bill and I decided to stay and take in a movie.  Soon we made our way back to the park,

Janie cooked dinner tonight.  She made a chicken corn chowder that was good.  Good thing she didn't make a big meal as most of us were kinda full from lunch!

So that is all for now.  Tomorrow we head to Galveston.  Enjoy all the pictures