We started our day in down town Houston at Rice University with a presentation on the sun. It was really interesting although some of it was quite hard, I suppose the sun is pretty complex. It was great to have the presentation from Dr Holly Gilbert as it is good to meet people at the front of scientific research who are only in their twenties. Rice was an incredible place to visit and a real eye opener as far as what is possible for us in our next steps.
After lunch at an authentic American BBQ restaurant we went to the Houston Challenger Centre. Here we undertook an advanced mission to Mars in their state of the art Centre. We split into two groups one undertook the mission while the other directed from mission control and then we swapped over. It was challenging and great fun.
In the evening we ate at Joe’s Crab Shack where we were joined and had a talk from astronaut Mark Kelly. Mark is the Commander of the next Space Shuttle Mission, STS 124
An awesome day when we went behind the scenes at the home of Mission Control and astronaut training. Our first stop was at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. This is the world’s biggest swimming pool in which we watched astronauts training for space walks underwater. The astronauts can float just like in space. We followed this with a visit to the world’s largest vacuum chamber.
We also saw astronauts training the space shuttle and station simulation building.
We had a massive lunch in the astronauts dining room followed by visits to the Space Shuttle Mission Control and to the Historic Mission Control. It was a tremendous feeling to sit at the actual consoles which controlled the Moon landings.
Our final destination was to see one of the three Saturn 5 Moon Rockets remaining from the 1970s. This was again a tremendously inspirational site to view one of our best achievements ever.
In the evening we had dinner at ‘Frenchies’, surprisingly a historic Italian restaurant. At dinner we had a presentation from George Abbey former Director of Johnson Space Centre on the development of the space programme and how we could get involved.
A day of space travel insights. We started with a historic tour of the human space adventure with rocket scientist Jerry Brown and went on to see the most advanced rocket engine in the world. Our visit to Space Centre Houston with Jerry let us see a range of capsules that had been in space from the earliest Mercury missions to capsules that had been to the Moon. We went into the astronauts’ Space Lab trainer and viewed huge chunks of rocks from the Moon. We had chance to take in shuttle simulators and the original designs of the space shuttle.
In the afternoon we had a really cool visit to meet Franklin Chang Diaz, he is an astronaut who has been into space 7 times. With a team, he has developed a new type of rocket engine that super heats gases to form a plasma, and uses magnetic field to control the plasma as the plasma is too hot to be contained by any materials on earth. We saw the new engine that is to be installed in the International Space Station. It really was like meeting something out of ‘Star Trek’. The other thing that was really cool was that the team of scientists was really young. It is really encouraging to know that people in their early twenties can really be at the cutting edge of developing advanced technology.
Video of Dr. Chang-Diaz discussing the new VASIMIR engine technology
We finished a great day by meeting up with astronaut General Charlie Bolden and his wife at T-Bone Toms for dinner and presentation.
The day started with a visit to the San Jacinto Monument, the largest monument in the USA. It was built on the site of the Texan victory over the Mexican army. We learnt of the history of the start of the State of Texas. After this we travelled to old, by US standards, western town of Galveston where we shopped and had a dip in the Gulf of Mexico. Our evening was at the Italian restaurant, the lovely Villa Capri. It was a real privilege to be joined by Apollo and Space Shuttle astronaut General Joe Engle and the former Director of Johnson Space Centre, George Abbey. During the evening we had really lively time chatting and singing.
With Apollo and space shuttle astronaut General Joe Engle
View of down town Houston from the San Jacinto Monument
The San Jacinto Monument
At the USS Texas, the world’s only surviving Dreadnought
Up very early to fly to Houston. We checked into our hotel - the Comfort Inn in NASA Parkway which we all thought looked really good. We then visited a Houston mall with a fantastic array of shops. We finished our afternoon at Rodeo Champion, Larry Allens’ Cowboy Shop. Some of us bought Stetsons, boots, shirts and jeans - no-one purchased a lassoe as we thought we would have limited use for it back home in Merthyr.
In the evening we had a real treat -Michael Foale, NASA’s British born record-breaking astronaut, gave us a talk and joined us for dinner at the laid-back Fudruckers.
We spent the day on astronaut training at the Astronaut Hall of Fame. A really active day that included intereactive sessions on space, being spun around in 3-D on the multi axis trainers, bouncing on the moon walk simulator, climbing the neutrally weighted wall and conducting a shuttle mission into orbit and then landing at Kennedy Space Centre; we understand that landing in the trees is very bad.
In the cockpit of the space shuttle
In the evening we ate at the lively Rusty’s at Port Canaveral. We were joined for dinner by Bill Parsons, the Director of Kennedy Space Centre, his family and again by former Director Jay Honeycutt.
A very different day. We toured the Wildlife Reserve, 250 square miles of alligator and venomous snake-infested swamp to you and me. We carried out a water survey in the Mosquito Lagoon. The Lagoon is full of brackish (a mixture of salt and fresh) water. In the survey we collected and categorised a range of shrimps, jellyfish and crabs including the large and pre-historic horse-shoe crab, and many different fish and insects.
In the evening we visited the BCC Planetarium and Observatory. In the giant Planetarium we viewed the night sky for the evening and saw the Amazing Universe laser-show, we then watched Solar Max on the IMAX screen and had a great time playing with the interactive exhibits.
We ate at the help yorself and aeat as much as you want ‘Whistle Stop’ an awesome eating experience
A really good day. Theme park meets environmental awareness. We saw behind the scenes and were given a great insight into the fragile position of much of our sea-life. We saw all the shows like Shamu and finished off the day with rides, the Kraken was outstanding.
We really enjoyed eating at Denny’s Diner on the way home and had a real laugh there.
Today we had the fantastic privilege of a behind the scenes tour of Kennedy Space Centers’ major facilities. We started the day by teaming up with some American students from Cocoa High School.
Our first activity was a really enjoyable rocketry workshop with the space centers’ education team. When we started the tour our first stop was the Vehicle Assembly Building. This was once the biggest building in the world and this is where the space shuttle is put together before it is taken to the launch pad. It’s awesomely large and very difficult to take a photo that does it justice.
Following this we had a tour inside the space shuttle launch pad and then visited the International Space Station facility to look at modules that are about to go into space.
We finished off an amazing visit at the Space Life Sciences laboratory where we saw developments that will protect astronauts from the abrasions of moondust, lead to cures for Alzheimers, develop bio-fuels from slime and grow plants in space.
In the evening we ate at the Shark-Pit Grill and met former Kennedy Space Center Director, Jay Honeycutt. It was great to hear from Jay, particularly his stories of his work on the moon missions.
Just look at our images to get an idea of our great day.
A really interesting day. We toured Cape Canaveral to see the earliest US launch sites and the launch pads that send probes to all parts of the Solar system and satellites into orbit around the Earth.
Our guide, Jeff, was a former Air Force 1 pilot and has a massive knowledge of space and all forms of flight. Jeff also gave us a guided tour of a Saturn V moon rocket, there are only three of these left from Man’s journies to the Moon. Later, we rode the Space Shuttle launch experience. This is new and is described by Astronaut Charlie Bolden as being better than Nasa’s astronaut training simulator. We finished our day at the Space Center by seeing the IMAX movie, Magnificent Desolation.
In the evening we had dinner with rocket engineer, Scott Vangen. Scott was the first person from Kennedy Space Center to be trained as an astronaut and he was a member of the team that confirmed the theory of the origins of the Universe.
Relaxing but busy day. We started by seeing manatees up close, they are like sea elephants, then had some games and a dip on the Canaveral Sea Shore, the longest unspoilt beach in the USA, fitted in a shopping mall with those great American prices and still managed to fit in some pool time.
In the evening we ate at the Texas Roadhouse, a real fun place.
