The sheer enormity of this rocket was surreal!
Emma was fairly bored from the start. She was a trooper though!
I loved seeing this! Our nations flag and USA on the side of the rocket. Seeing that made the meaning of it more enormous than it was physically.
Reading this brought tears to my eyes. You could almost feel what they must have felt. That was only looking at pictures so imagine the feeling of being there.
Emma's space pose!
There are plans in place to go to Mars. MARS!!!!! Walking this tour brought up so many questions for me that I had never even thought about. Questions I wouldn't think about normally. Being in that environment it definitely made you think. Do astronauts get sick in space? What if an astronaut has a heart attack? An appendicitis? Is there flu..colds? Fever? How does your body adjust? What if on that tether, outside of the space station, it breaks...what happens?
Astronauts can get sick in space but typically by illness brought on board when the entered the space station. Many astronauts are doctors and/or medically trained. If the situation is fatal there isn't much that can be done. Astronauts are usually military so they are also used to being away from family for long periods of time. They are generally in space 6 months at a time. Scott Kelly was there a year. If the tether were to break while outside the space station there is a battery pack on the space suit that can guide you back to the station. You only have about 30-45 seconds to get back. After that the situation is dire and likely not recoverable.
This is the current space station which orbits the earth every 90 minutes. Every 90 minutes the astronauts on board can see a sunrise. The space station travels at a speed of 17,400 mph.
Currently Japan, Russia and the US are in space. I had no idea that we cohesively worked together as we do...in space that is.
Fun fact.....the urine of the astronauts is regenerated to become drinking water. That is the easiest way to put it. I was a little shocked by this.
Emma and Cash got NASA stickers and this is her serious astronaut face.
The capsule, which houses the astronauts so to speak, lands in the ocean after breaking from the shuttle.
Those we lost....Ben could remember where we was when the Challenger exploded.
Still in testing but robot that's controlled by the astronauts.
Mission Control....this was pretty unbelievable. We got to watch a sunrise as the space station was orbiting the earth. I should have gotten a picture of the first mission control room which looks very different from this. Technology is amazing! Every 90 minutes the space station makes a rotation around the earth going 17500 miles per hour!
David, our tour guide (works for NASA), let Cash and Ben maneuver the arm which connects the space station to supply deliveries etc. Cash did slightly better but they both failed. It was hilarious. We had Cash convinced it was real and he was actually controlling this "arm" and connecting to the space station.
After NASA we headed to the TopWater Grill. It was about 20 minutes away and on the water. Really pretty and highly recommended by my mother and Uncle Eddie. It must have been better when they were there. While it was very packed the food just wasn't great. Glad we went....
Cash was pretty amazed by the Houston skyline. It is beautiful. All the tall buildings! It always reminds me of Urban Cowboy when Pam asks Bud..."come to Houston proper much?".
We headed to the Woodlands Resort after dinner. Got there a little late in the evening but we got checked in, ordered dessert from room service and to bed we went. I will just notate here that the customer service at the hotel was awful but all in all we had a good time. Rooms are nice, food was good and grounds beautiful.
We had dinner at Robard's Saturday evening which was the resorts steak house. It was good...I loved these old pics!
I couldn't resist capturing this moment of these two cuties! My world....minus one...Ben was at the gym.
Before we left Houston we stopped for lunch at a Steak and Shake. We had never eaten at one and it was GOOD!
No comments:
Post a Comment