Houston we have a problem..

Kennedy Space Center, Shuttle Launch, and one last space stop-  Johnson Space Center.

In case anyone is wondering, Spring Break in Houston is March 14th - 18th, and the Space Center has  great 1/2 off coupons online  Gone were our days of off season, deserted amusement park touring.   I am pretty sure the entire town of Houston was at the Space Center on Tuesday.

We bypassed the crowds in the space exhibits inside and joined the crowds lining up for the tours of the astronaut training facilities. 

 I was under the impression that NASA maintained some kind of anti-gravity chamber.  In actuality the only way they achieve weightlessness on Earth is in an airplane that can maintain a free fall for 22 seconds and in this massive 40 foot deep swimming pool.  Because training for 22 seconds at a time is impractical, all astronauts training for space walks spend much of their time in this pool.  Eleven hours of training in the pool for every one hour they will walk in space.

After waiting over an hour in line for the tour our timing could not have been more perfect.  Like the tour immediately proceeding ours, we got to see the astronauts working below the water, but unlike anyone else that day we got to see them lifted out of the water and helped out of their spacesuits. 

 On our tour to mission control Andy was looking forward  to seeing the actual "Houston" that Neil Armstrong was talking  to.

 It was a bit disappointing, but at the same time exciting that we were instead allowed to see the current mission control center.  There is only time to see one during the tour and our guide said it is infrequent that NASA allows tours of this facility.  After touring CNN I think we were expecting something a bit more high tech, but all of the space shuttle missions have been managed from this facility and it has 131 plaques to prove it.  Two plaques, one for Challenger and one for Columbia remain hanging on the wall in an "ongoing mission" status to commemorate astronauts that did not return home.

As we left Houston we couldn't help but compare it with our time at Cape Canaveral.  Kennedy certainly had a flashier facility, but both centers seemed a bit dated.  Houston did win the prize for out of date when a video during our tour frequently mentioned  when the US would start construction on the International Space Station.  Regardless, both Space Centers offer a fun glimpse into the real working side of NASA and in hindsight I am not sure I could choose one over the other.  I would probably just skip many of the exhibits and spend my time on the "behind the scenes" type tours.