Backstage at NASA

We were like kids in a candy store.  After a morning of great presentations at our IPREX conference in Houston, we loaded up on a bus and headed to visit NASA and get a real behind the scenes tour of the Johnson Space Center.  It was better than advertised.

Let me explain.  I'm a child of the space race.  When I was a youngster, I used to get up at 4 in the morning to watch the Mercury, the Gemini and then the early Apollo space shots lift off.  I followed each and every voyage and from time to time dreamed that maybe someday......

Well that didn't happen, but my fascination with the exploration of space has never waned.  So today, to be able to take the tour we did was a big deal.  Here is what we saw.

We stood in the Shuttle Mission Control room and watched a team going through a simulation.  Then we were able to go into the old Mission Control Room where all the historic Apollo missions were managed.  It is now a national historic site.  The equipment looked archaic.  There were dial rotary phones at each desk.  Some of you may have never seen a rotary phone.  If not in this room, the consoles would be in a trash heap somewhere.  But not these institutional green consoles.  They were part of history.

Our guides told us that at the time, that room sat on top of the biggest computer in the world.  Today, this laptop I'm writing on has more power than what they used to get men to the moon and back.  It was a room with no windows but it was a room that had a window to some of the most historic moments in history.

One of the most unique mementos on the wall was a small mirror inside a glass case.  The small plaque below it said that this was to thank all the people in Mission Control.  It was from the Apollo 13 astronauts who never made it to the moon because of that fateful explosion.  They would not have made it back to earth but for the heroic efforts of the people in that room.  The mirror was so each of them could see their own reflection and know they had been a part of one of NASA's finest hours.

We then visited a laboratory and watched how a team of scientists are sifting through cosmic dust from the tail of a comet gathered by a satellite 18 months ago.  It was fascinating to hear the science and engineering behind the gathering of the particles and the painstaking work going on to learn what we can about what might lie beyond our solar system.

But the biggest treat was yet to come.  We had the opportunity to have two current astronauts show us around the training facility they use to prepare for their flights.  Inside a cavernous building were life size mock ups of the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.  Here is where the hard work is done to prepare for each flight.  Once the astronauts are assigned to a flight, they work for 12 to 18 months getting ready.  It was riveting to hear them talk about being in space.  Andrew has been up four times including a 20 week stay on the ISS.

He said the moments just before takeoff are a mixture of thinking about all that it has taken to get to that point and the familiarity of knowing exactly what has to happen because they have drilled and drilled for months on each step of the thousands of steps that make up the process of a space flight.  He talked about weightlessness becoming the norm and the incredible difficulty of taking a step upon his return to earth after 20 weeks.  He said legs are very heavy.  We just don't realize it.

We heard from another astronaut named Cady.  She has been in space twice.  She said something very interesting.  She said anyone who became an astronaut should not do it to simply fly on the space shuttle or to live on the space station.  She said most of the work done by the astronauts is done on earth.  They are working every day to make sure that whoever is next to go up is fully prepared and that each flight learns from the one before.

By the way, did you know that there are two men in space right now on the International Space Station?  We don't keep close track of our space adventures like we did when I was a child.  Cady is working with these guys every day from here in Houston.  She is working to find ways they can better use the robotic arms on the Space Station to build and repair it.

This is what exploration is all about and always has been.  Small steps.  Each one moving us forward into new territory.  There was a study I saw once that said Americans spend 19 times as much in restaurants each year as the federal government invests in NASA.  Which investment do you think gets a better return?

It was a special day.

Comments

[Swede]

What a wonderful experience you and your fellow IPREX folks had at NASA. Presume you told all the folks about meeting Gus Grissom at the Astrodome years before his accident. Also I have looked and have nothing but admiration for your Blogoshere site!!! Wow, what a lot of information is there. Outstanding!!!!