NASA's Johnson Space Center

The weather was forecast to be rainy, so we had the bright idea to see if we could find a tour of NASA's Johnson Space Center, which is only about 40 miles from our campground.  Boy, did we make a good decision!  We opted for the "Level 9" tour, rather than the Tram Tour.  This had to be the most fantastic and interesting tour we have ever taken.  Of anything.  Period.  It cost more but it was worth every cent.

There were only nine of us on the tour - two men and a woman from Hong Kong, China, a young couple from Russia, an engineer from Yorkshire, U.K., and a petro-chemical specialist from the Czech Republic.  We were given VIP passes and taken around the campus in our own passenger van.  The Johnson Space Center is huge with dozens and dozens of buildings.  Think of the biggest college campus you have ever seen and then double it!  The tour lasted almost 5 hours, and included lunch in the Space Center employee cafeteria, with NASA employees and engineers around us.

We had a little time before the tour, so we checked out the shuttle flight deck that is on display in the Visitor Center.  Here's Kathy trying to memorize the names, numbers and purposes of all the buttons and gizmos on the flight deck:

Our tour guides were Erwin and Brenda.  Brenda is the sister-in-law of our nation's first African-American astronaut!  They started us out with a bang:  We got to see the current, real Mission Control, in real operation, as they manage activities at the International Space Station.  Here's a photo of Mission Control.

The dark-haired woman turning around to look up at the camera is the flight director.  She is in charge of everything regarding the mission.  To her right is a woman astronaut who is the sole voice communication with the astronauts on the ISS.  NASA has a rule that there be only one voice communicating with the mission, and that it always be an astronaut.  The high-def screens in the background include real-time video feeds from cameras on the ISS.  Much of this is shown on the NASA Channel's Live ISS Video Feed, although the video the public sees is edited to some degree.

The ISS has 15 countries participating, with seven countries having built sections of the space station.  Here is a diagram of the ISS showing the countries that built each section:

We had a chance to see duplicates of each of these sections in two different contexts.  The robotics building of NASA houses duplicate models of each section for purposes of practicing various procedures.  A second set of duplicate models is contained in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab ("NBL"), which is, in effect, a huge swimming pool 40 feet deep, 200 feet long and 100 feet wide.  Submerged in the pool are sections of the ISS on which astronauts practice underwater wearing their actual spacesuits.  This same NBL is where astronauts try out various solutions to problems that arose on the space shuttle or might arise on the ISS or other manned missions.  Here is a photo of the NBL from the visitor's gallery:

We were very lucky to be at the NBL when two astronauts - Tracey Caldwell Dyson, an experienced U.S. woman astronaut, and Jeremy R. Hansen, a rookie Canadian male astronaut - were practicing some basic procedures in anticipation of joining the ISS in 2013.  While we were watching from above, we could also see video monitors showing live video feeds from the training cameras held by scuba divers, who filmed all the details of their training from several different angles.  The video included audio of their discussions among themselves about the tasks they were trying to perform.

But not only did we get to see the underwater practice - we also got to see the two astronauts being lifted out of the water and helped out of their spacesuits.  A crane is used to lift a platform on which the two astronauts have been helped to stand.  Here is a photo of them standing on the platform as they are being lifted out of the pool:

If you want to see a stream of photos showing the entire process of lifting the astronauts out of the pool and helping them out of their spacesuits, visit our Flickr collection here.

After we finished watching the astronauts practice in the NBL, Brenda and Erwin drove us over to the robotics lab, where we had a chance to look at models of each of the projects NASA is currently working on for future missions.  One is a two-person rover that could be used on the moon or Mars, or on an asteroid:

Another is the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), for use in future manned missions to the moon, Mars or asteroids:

A great description of the Orion capsule and its development is located at Wikipedia.

Of course, a robotics lab is not complete without robots.  NASA is actively working, with DARPA and other government agencies, on robots with artificial intelligence, including Robonaut 2 (or "R2"), which is described by NASA here.  See this very interesting YouTube video of a demonstration of Robonaut 2's capabilities.

We particularly liked "Centaur," which is a pairing of Robonaut 2 and a vehicular base, shown in the picture below.  When linked, Robonaut 2 can drive the vehicle and the two work in an integrated fashion:

After the robotics lab, we got to visit the historic, original Mission Control room, which still exists and has been preserved exactly as it was when it ceased operations.  Here's David sitting at the famous Flight Director seat --

-- and here's Kathy on the hot line to the Department of Defense about some sensitive, top secret matter relating to the current mission:

Perhaps the most touching piece of memorabilia in the original Mission Control room is a plaque hanging on the wall.  It contains a mirror (in which Kathy is reflected in the photo below) taken from the Apollo 13 lander as the capsule was preparing for re-entry, because the astronauts needed more weight in the capsule to compensate for moon rocks that would have been on board if the Apollo 13 mission had been able to land on the moon.  The result is that staffers of Mission Control, when they looked at the plaque, would see themselves reflected in it.

The plaque reads:

This mirror flown on Aquarius, LM-7, to the 

Moon April 11-17, 1970, returned by a grateful 

Apollo 13 crew to "reflect the image" of the 

people in mission control who got us back!

James Lovell        John Swigert        Fred Haise

After Mission Control, our final stop was to see an actual Saturn 5 rocket which was to have been the rocket to lift Apollo 20 on its mission.  The entire rocket is housed in a huge hangar, and is split into each of its stages to show them independently.  Atop the rocket is the original Apollo capsule along with its emergency launch escape system rocket still attached to the capsule.  It was impossible to get the entire rocket into one photograph, but this photo of Kathy inspecting the first stage engines gives you a good idea of its scale:

By the time the tour was done, we were breathless.  We couldn't have imagined a more complete or more colorful tour of NASA's manned missions and the facilities and equipment it uses to accomplish them.