Our Visit to Johnson Space Center, Houston

Following our return from the Western Caribbean cruise we decided to spend an extra day in Houston with Bob and Gail Conrad before their departure on Tuesday, December 10 back to San Diego. We checked into the same Hilton Garden Inn and rested up for our tour of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) on Monday, December 9th. Being a "card carrying space nerd", I was looking forward to spending more time in another of my "happy places".

Unlike the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, no rockets are launched from this NASA facility. JSC is where Mission Control is manned by space flight managers, technicians, and mission specialists. Here scientists provide support and monitor missions and the spacecrafts after they're launched. This is where the International Space Station (ISS) is monitored and managed from the ground and communication is ongoing with the ISS 24/7.

The museum we visited is on the actual Johnson Space Center grounds and we got to include a visit to the Rocket Garden, home to one of the only three remaining Saturn V's, the actual Boeing 747 that transported all the Space Shuttles back to the Kennedy Space Center and numerous wonderful exhibits and displays. In addition we took two tours onto the JSC campus; one to the Mission Control Facility and the other to the Astronaut Training Facility.

Most of the space shuttle landings were at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert of California. A few weeks after the landing, this specially modified 747 would transport the shuttle, mounted piggy-back, and return it to the Kennedy Space Center for another future flight.

NASA's Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center (MCC-H, initially called Integrated Mission Control Center, or IMCC), also known by its radio call sign, "Houston", is the facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, that manages flight control for the United States human space program, currently involving astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The center is in Building 30 at the Johnson Space Center and is named after Christopher C. Kraft Jr., a NASA engineer and manager who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control operation, and was the first Flight Director.

We were allowed to visit the Mission Operations Control Room 2 (MOCR 2) that was used for all Gemini and Apollo (Saturn V) flights (except Gemini 3); it was located on the third floor. As the flight control room for Apollo 11, the first crewed Moon landing, MOCR 2 was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985. It was last used in 1992 as the flight control room for STS-53 and was subsequently converted back almost entirely to its Apollo-era configuration and preserved for historical purposes. Together with several support wings, it is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the "Apollo Mission Control Center". In January 2018, the first set of consoles in MOCR 2 were removed and sent to the Kansas Cosmosphere for archival cleaning, refurbishment, and restoration to Apollo-era configuration, for eventual display back in the control room. On July 1, 2019, the newly restored Apollo-era Mission Control was reopened to the public after a two-year long effort to restore the room to its configuration as seen during the Apollo Moon landings. Period-appropriate accents were acquired, from cigarette packs and ashtrays to wallpaper and carpeting. The room is accessible via the tram tour at the nearby Space Center Houston visitors' center, but only from behind the glass in the restored Visitor's Gallery viewing room.

As we sat in the visitor's viewing area, we relived the Apollo 11 descent of the LEM with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon's surface and landing on July 20, 1969. "Tranquility Base here...the Eagle has landed."

Following our tour of MOCR 2 we visited the Astronaut Training Facility at NASA Johnson Space Center. The only way for the public to view this facility is through Space Center Houston’s Astronaut Training Facility NASA tram tour! Astronauts train within this full-size classroom in the heart of NASA Johnson Space Center. Since its inception in 1975, the Astronaut Training Facility has supported NASA’s missions. There have been several types of mockups within the facility and each served a different function for astronauts and engineers. Initially, the facility housed space shuttle training modules such as the full fuselage trainer and two crew compartment trainers.

Although equipment in the building may change, the goal of this training facility has remained the same. It houses almost 200 training courses to help astronauts become familiar with the spacecraft, understand its various systems and prepare for emergencies that may occur during a mission.

This facility houses a full-size and complete with all the modules International Space Station, a Boeing Starliner, Soyuz capsule, and NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis missions

The Astronaut Training Facility has become the central hub for resolving issues during missions. If a problem were to occur aboard the ISS, JSC officials would come to the facility to work through the situation with engineers, then relay the step-by-step process to the astronauts in orbit.

Space Center Houston offers this behind-the-scenes look at NASA Johnson Space Center on the NASA Tram Tour. As part of this tour, on a walkway positioned right above the training mockups, we observed the engineers, astronauts and equipment used for daily trainings.

Karen really got into the spirit of the tour.

Well, we all were "space nerds" for the day and celebrated our completion of the JSC mission with dinner at the Olive Garden restaurant before dropping Bob and Gail off at the hotel. We hugged and said our goodbyes with talk of a future cruise to be determined.

We drove the two hours from Houston back to Smithville and got home about 10 PM. We left everything in the truck and cozied up in our own warm bed after a wonderful adventure of sightseeing and travel.