We attempted to hit the sack a little bit earlier as we had tickets for the Level 9 tour of NASA the next day, but what with all the beer, and me successfully hooking TJ on the Outlander books, and the both of us staying up to read, this did not occur. But we forged ahead anyway; I mean who sleeps in on NASA day!
We traversed the 45 minute trip to South Houston without incident and arrived at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Centre with plenty of time to kill before our tour.
I should perhaps explain what the Level 9 tour is. On a regular tour of NASA, you get on a tram, you drive around the buildings, you go in the observation deck levels of all the areas available for tourists, you go in the museum, you see the rockets, and you go home.
A Level 9 tour is so very much more than that…
First of all, you get a lanyard. I realize this sounds really anticlimactic, but it's fucking cool okay?
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| It actually said "Failure is not an option" down the lanyard strap. |
You also get ferried around the space centre in an air conditioned van. This may seem like not a bit deal, but Texas is HOT ya'll!
We got to eat in the cafeteria. Again, this doesn't sound like a big deal, but this isn't, like, the cafeteria for the public. I mean the STAFF cafeteria, where the mission control people, the rocket scientists, and the freaking astronauts grab lunch before going to do space stuff. Now, imagine TJ and I standing there with our trays looking around at all the tables full of cool kids like a couple of dweebs. THEN it seems like a very big deal.
I've never felt less cool in my whole life.
When we stepped outside I kept trying to imagine what the facility looked like back in the sixties; the parking lot full of old cars, people smoking like chimneys, and an abundance of polyester.
We went to the Sonny Carter Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory and saw an actual Astronaut train underwater amidst shuttle sized reproductions and surrounded by divers.
We passed a Boeing building with a sign that looked peculiarly like "Strategic Defence Systems", something I thought was chillingly close to Strategic Defence Initiative...or SDI...or STAR WARS (a.k.a. Nuclear Weapons in Space.)
It felt like something creepy walked the entire length of my spine, back down, and made all the hair on my arms stand straight up.
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| Building 30 which houses Mission Control |
The next place we went, was mission control. As soon as you get off the elevator onto the floor, there is an overpowering smell of black coffee that has apparently permeated every nook and cranny of the building. Our tour guide called it “fuel” and we all laughed falsely at his dad joke. People walk past looking purposeful and incredibly normal, though their official NASA badges declaring their purpose in life labeled them as anything else.
We went into the observation room of the new Mission Control where they were doing a simulation run for the next Shuttle Launch. Once again, I was struck with how average these people looked, regardless of how far from average their jobs are.
Next we went into the observation room of one of the other mission control rooms, but this one was not doing a simulation. They had a live feed going with the Space Station and we watched as they went into 45 minutes of darkness on their rotation around the earth.
Our final stop in this building was the classic “Green Room” mission control of the Apollo era. We did not stay in the observation area here…we went into the room!
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| It's really hard not to picture Ed Harris in his white vest prowling around these aisles. |
Behind the glass was the “other” tour, which I’m sure sat and watched enviously as I pulled out one of the grey office chairs and sat down in front of the Flight Director’s station.
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| Me trying to act like i'm not freaking out. |
It was extremely difficult not to push the many buttons displayed in front of me; I looked up on the walls and saw the mission plaques from all the Apollo flights and the red phone with the direct line to the pentagon and that familiar sensation of trying to reconcile all that you've seen on TV and what you expect it to look and feel like with what you're actually seeing and experiencing.
It's a dichotomy that never really coalesces into something whole. Even if you get used to it, every once and a while something will jerk you back into the realization that you're in the room where Houston actually had the fucking problem.
We went into the Vehicle Mock-Up Facility where the Astronauts actually train to pilot the shuttles, rovers, and lunar modules and where NASA engineers were working on the new chariot vehicle. Our tour guide told us that we were not allowed to photograph the Astronauts unless they came up and posed voluntarily.
I had two intense feelings that often accompany me when I go into an extremely holy church: 1) the unstoppable urge to swear, and 2) this all encompassing sense that I just do not belong there. I am not an astronaut, I am not a rocket scientist, hell I’m not even a regular scientist; I live in a freaking van right now! Why on earth should I be walking around with people who are so far out of my league as peers…they’re in fucking space! Once again, however, we saw the poor shmoes behind glass on the top level, and both TJ and I had the biggest “too bad suckas” smiles on our faces. Level 9 bitches! Booyaw!
Finally we went inside the Rocket Park, which the other tours do get to go in, but it’s still worth mentioning because it’s the biggest damn thing I may have ever seen.
The Saturn V rockets took all of the Apollo missions up, but for some reason Apollo 18 lacked funding and for some reason that rocket never went up. It now sits in a warehouse sized just big enough to fit the rocket…and it’s massive. For example:
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| Just one of the thrusters is bigger than TJ. |
We left this building feeling more humbled than ever before, but also just buzzing from not only just being here, but also at the level of access we got. The tickets were about a hundred bucks but honestly it was worth every penny.
We stayed a few days with our Couch Surfing host before we met up with some friends of TJ that she had, not unlike Craig and Ellie, met in Jasper and who said she should look them up if she was ever in Houston. They took us for an amazing Tex Mex dinner where I had a deep fried avocado that was somehow filled with cheese? And they let us stay at their amazing home for the weekend. Our plans were to take in a Joel Osteen Jesus-filled Sunday at his stadium sized church, but sleeping in just seemed so much better.
We did end up going down to Galveston for the day on Saturday, the highlights of which are essentially that we finally arrived at the Gulf of Mexico. The water was chocolate milk brown because the Mississippi River empties into the gulf and the current brings it down to Galveston. Either way, new body of water!!!
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