Visiting the Johnson Space Center in Houston was such a fun learning opportunity for Luna and I. Unfortunately, NASA was closed to visitors due to Covid. Please click on the podcast tab of our site and listen to Luna share her perspective on what we learned. Our hope is that these pictures will help you visualize what we saw on our visit.
This is the first of three rockets that were used to send the Apollo crews to the moon in the 1960's and 1970's. Listen to the podcast for more details, but it's worth mentioning that this is not a replica, but a rocket that was created for a mission that never took place.
Once the first rocket pushed the astronauts up into the atmosphere it broke off, and this rocket took over to push the astronauts into earth's orbit.
Once an Apollo crew had orbited the earth and all systems seemed to be working, this last rocket pushed them out of the earth's orbit and into the moon's orbit.
The small rocket on top would have been released right after blast off (it's purpose was to save the crew if there was a fire in the early part of take off). The brownish pod is where the crew's captain spent the entire mission. All 3 of the crew members were in that space for the whole mission except for the time that 2 of the members went onto the moon's surface. The craft that took them to the moon was housed in the white section of the craft.
This shows the pod up close that the 3 members of an Apollo mission would have been in, it was a very small space.
This is the interior of a space shuttle. Space travelers of the space shuttle era (starting in the 1980's) had a lot more room.
It's hard to see it all, but this is the first American Space Station. Now our astronauts go to an international space station and work with scientists from other countries on various projects. We learned that there has been an American in space continuously for over 20 years.
Sally Ride was the first U.S. woman in space. This is her jumpsuit.