We'd planned what to see in Houston, with the closest attraction to our RV Park being the Space Center, a 15-minute drive away. NASA’s Johnson Space Center is a huge complex that’s delves into the space program of the US.
Ticket prices aren't cheap (it's $44.95 in-person, but $39.95 if they're purchased in advance online--which we had researched and found out about the deal beforehand!), and parking costs an additional $10.99. But as soon as we walked into the complex, we were amazed and somewhat overwhelmed by how big it was, and knew immediately that we'd be here the rest of the day.
A Snapshot of the Exhibits
The Space Center has multiple exhibit sections inside. We first checked out the Starship Gallery, which houses a ton of different spacecraft that we could look around and into, such as the Apollo 17 Command Module, a Mercury 9 capsule (Faith 7), and a Gemini V capsule.
Just outside of this, there's a full-size replica of a Space Shuttle that we could walk inside (that's several stories tall), which is mounted on top of a Boeing 747 shuttle carrier jet. Lisette doesn't know as much about space missions as Michael, so he had to explain the role of the Boeing carrier to transport the space shuttle once it had landed back on earth, like one of those people that doesn't understand the plot while watching a movie ("Wait, I thought he was married to the other lady?").
Another exhibition is the International Space Station Gallery, where we could learn all about how multiple countries are coming together, how they lived (from their food to how they exercised). There's an entire wall that shows photos of every single space mission, as well as a small section called "Mission Mars" and future plans to explore the red planet.
What we loved about the Space Center was that it is super interactive: there are controls to push, space suits to stand next to, and many models and replicas of spacecraft to look inside. We could even touch a piece of the moon, and it's only one of 8 lunar samples that the public can touch! It's a charcoal grey, almost black color, and very smooth, although that's likely helped by the fact that so many hands have rubbed over it. There's also a virtual reality experience, but it costs an extra $10 to do it and there was a decent queue, so we skipped this one.
Besides walking around to check out the exhibits, there are several films and shows. We watched a 15-minute film called "Human Destiny" that delved into NASA's lunar missions. The other film we enjoyed was a 50-minute video called "The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks" where he discusses the various voyages to the moon. The theater has multiple screens surrounding the front of the theater, making it a more immersive experience. Sheila was with us and the surround sound can be quite loud at times, but she didn't seem to be fussed by it, chilling out in the air-conditioned theater. There's one other film and a presentation we saw briefly called "Training for Tomorrow" that is a live talk by Mission Briefing officers about their space training, but we simply ran out of time, and were packed with information by the end of the day!
Taking the Tram
The Space Center isn't just confined to one building, so towards the end of our visit we also did a NASA Tram Tour, which is like hopping on a tram that looks like the ones that take people around in Disney World or Universal Studios. There are several different tours that keep running throughout the day, but there's a limited number of tickets available, so it's best to get to the Guest Services line early to nab tickets. We did the 60-minute Astronaut Training Facility tour. We passed a field with Texas longhorns, and a number of NASA campus buildings, including the Mission Control building where the famous "Houston, we have a problem" message was relayed.
Our first stop was the building where we could see where NASA employees develop space vehicles, but we were a little disappointed as we could only view down into one main room, and it was a Sunday so the area was empty. Even more than this, based on the tour description we were expecting to see the pool and areas where astronauts train, but we didn't see any of this. The second stop on this tour was at the Rocket Park, where we saw a number of rockets that propelled space exploration. While this stop was optional, we definitely recommend getting off the tram! One of the highlights was seeing the Saturn V, the tallest, heaviest and most powerful rocket ever flown. NASA mostly used these gigantic Saturn V rockets during the Apollo program to send American astronauts to the Moon.
Fortunately we could reenter the Space Center museum complex, as while there's a big food court that looked pretty good, serving everything from fresh salads, pizzas, sandwiches, coffee and baked goods, we preferred to grab lunch from our RV. Of course, we were eager to get back inside because it was yet another hot Texas day!
Mosquito Mania
Our RV park stay for the night was at AllStars RV Resort, on the outskirts of Houston. While the RV park moved us along on our trip, the spots were a lot tighter compared to other parks we've been to, so we were much closer to our neighbors. And while the spots were shady with trees, when Michael plugged into the city water, it leaked quite a bit onto the ground, adding to the pool of water already sitting there.
All of this meant that when Lisette got out of the RV to help guide Michael into the tight parking spot, in less than the minute that this took, she was attacked by mosquitos, amassing 5 big itchy welts! That was enough for Lisette to retire back into the RV for the rest of the night, skipping pool time and not emerging from the RV until the next morning, away from the parking spot and closer to the office to throw away some of our rubbish!
Route Map
