Flashback to Texas - The Lyndon B Johnson Space Center

Unfortunately, Joe's been told to prepare to work evenings and weekends while we're in Houston meaning we can't really plan much fun stuff while we are here.  Not to mention, our hotel is not in the greatest of areas and the public transport here is practically nonexistent.  This means I'll be spending most of the time at the hotel pool but I thought it would be fun to share some of our previous experiences in Texas.

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One of our favourite Houston experiences was visiting NASA.  My husband, an engineer, loves things like this and even I couldn't help being wooed by the amount of extraordinary things that have been connected to this Space Centre.

The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is located on the South side of Houston and it sits on 1,620 acres of land and is home to the astronaut corps, training all future NASA astronauts and Mission Control which controls all activity on the International Space Station.

The entire space centre is tightly monitored and visitors have very limited access to a handful of buildings.  A tram transports everyone around the property starting and ending at the tourist centre.  We passed by several unmarked buildings without windows and you couldn't help but ponder what kinds of crazy things go on in there.

One of the most interesting segments was when a former NASA employee who worked many of launches in this very Mission Control Centre gave his perspective on what it was like witnessing history being made.

A mock- up of the International Space Station - Astronauts learn this inside and out before they see the real thing.

One of Canada's contributions - The Canada Arm 

This rocket was built but funding was cut and it never made it to space. Instead it sits here on display.  (Fun fact - the Astronauts travel back to Earth in that tiny copper capsule on the very top.)

Our trip to NASA left us reeling from copious amounts of information yet yearning to learn and understand more.  One couldn't help but feel like we were somewhere where BIG things happen and what we wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall in some of those unmarked buildings!