Earlier this week I went home to Houston, TX and embraced being a tourist in my city, especially since one of my best friends from UTK, Cerys, and her mom had come in town! The first stop that I knew we had to make was NASA and the Johnson Space Center.
I had not been to Space Center Houston since I spent the night at NASA with Girls Scouts and was super pumped to be able to go back by. I actually think that I had forgotten how cool NASA really was!
We had a full day of exploring the exhibits of the Space Center and had a blast (get it?!) during the tram tours of both the Saturn V Rocket and the Astronaut Training Facility. But my favorite part of the day was the tour of Mission Control and learning about the vital roles each of the stations have for a successful mission and flight.
Fun Fact: The Saturn V rocket (pictured below) was built to go to space but was never launched due to a decrease in the NASA budget.
For me, I was especially interested in the EECOM position. This person is tasked with the health and safety of the astronauts, specifically passive and active thermal controls of the vehicle, cabin atmosphere, supply systems and fire detection. I think that this would be an amazing position to have and be able to assist in the everyday of our astronauts in the ISS.
Fun Fact: There has continually been an American astronaut on the ISS for 19 years!
I also loved walking through the Boeing that flew the Space Shuttle and the Space Shuttle itself and how the plane was altered to be able to carry the shuttle. Did you know that NASA had to reinforce to walls of the plane to be able to support the weight of the shuttle? I didn’t! I also remembered that my 5th grader math teacher, Mrs. Kiker, told me that her father-in-law worked on the engineering of the shuttle transport, and I saw the video footage of him developing the models and plans!
The astronaut training facility was also amazing, because I was able to see the exact replica mock-ups of the ISS that astronauts use to train in! I also was interested in all the innovations NASA was creating in the room that I was able to see. I also was able to see an astronaut who was training using ARGOS. Which is the Active Response Gravity Offload System that is designed to simulate reduced gravity environments like Mars, or the Moon has and uses an overhead bridge crane-like system.
I loved visiting NASA again, and felt transported back to my childhood where all things were possible! I also was excited during this trip to see that some of the research I had participated in and helped with was being used in the Orion project and NASA planning on reaching Mars by 2040!
Happy 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing! Go Vols!
Caroline
