Houston, We Have a Problem

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Johnson Space Center

I began today at one of Houston’s most popular tourist site, the Johnson Space Center.

Its world famous as the place that directs all American manned space flights.

All Apollo radio messages started with a reference to Houston (including the infamous one from Apollo 13 listed in the blog title).





The center requires a drive, because it exists on the very edge of the city proper.

Civilians get funneled to a large parking lot outside a white, vaguely futuristic building labeled Space Center Houston.

Inside contains three things: a museum on the manned space program, a space themed science museum, and the starting point of center tours.





The information brochures recommend seeing the history museum first for background.

The information people point out that tours are first come, first served and very popular, so to get on a tour visitors practically have to head there first.

The queue entrance has a very helpful sign estimating the wait time.

What it doesn’t mention is that the wait will be outside, in the Texas heat!

The center is a security site, so plan for a thorough search too.

I headed straight to the queue, and got on a tour in about an hour.





The tour makes three stops.

The center is so large that the exact three varies by day.

This had painful consequences for me, because it meant I missed something I really wanted to see.





Our guide first discussed why NASA came to Houston, sort of.

They stated that the space agency was looking for a large tract of land that it could acquire cheaply, near a large city with many talented engineers.

When Rice University offered to donate a large ranch they owned, it sealed the deal.





Those who do background research know that wasn’t the only reason.

The name of the center is a big hint: ‘Johnson’ is Lyndon Baines Johnson, United State Vice President (and later President), former Senate Majority Leader, one of the most powerful politicians in Washington DC, and a Texan.

George H. Mahon, a powerful member of the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee (and a later chairman) just happened to represent a Houston district too.

James Webb, NASA’s head administrator, knew the agency would need hundreds of millions of dollars to reach the moon, and throwing some of them at a place those two gentlemen cared about certainly helped his case.





Beyond the security fence, we first passed a surprise, a pasture holding long horned steers.

A local high school that works with at-risk youth needed a place to teach ranch skills, and NASA donated the land.

Next we entered an area that looked like a spread out 1960s office park.

Most of the buildings had undistinguished International Style architecture.

According to our guide, the architects wanted the place to resemble a college campus, to promote openness and creativity.





We finally stopped outside a grey five story building with no windows.

It may look like the dullest building in the complex, but it holds some of the most important areas, the mission control rooms.

We passed through an equally dull lobby and up a set of stairs to a theater overlooking a room containing large video screens and lots of computer terminals.





This room is one of the main control rooms in the building.

Space missions from the first Apollo flights to shuttle launches have been managed from this room.

The side wall has a display of patches of every mission handled here.

The video screens held a world map tracing out the orbit of the International Space Station.





Our guide described what happens in rooms like this.

The computer terminals all had signs above them listing the job performed by each member of the control team.

Each person monitors a different part of a space flight, such as cargo and life support.

An overall director in turn monitors them.

We didn’t get to see any of this, because the room was empty.

It was used to control shuttle flights, which recently ended.

Now, it’s used for training new crews for the ISS control room, and public tours.

I’m disappointed.





The room looked much smaller than expected.

Like the VLA in New Mexico (see To Discover the Universe), that’s due to Hollywood.

Space movies, including Apollo 13, always make the control rooms seem like large dramatic spaces while the real thing is almost claustrophobic.

The actual control room used for Apollo 11, the first moon landing, is now restored as it was in 1969, but we didn’t get to see it.

That was a bigger disappointment.





The next building we saw was three stories high with the same grey color scheme.

It could be a warehouse except for the enormous door at the end.

Walking around the corner showed that it was unbelievably long.

Inside, we entered a viewing corridor above a huge hanger; the entire building is basically one gigantic room.

This is the training center, where astronauts prepare for missions.





The goal of astronaut training is to ensure they can live and work in space with the same automatic familiarity as people go about tasks on earth.

Running a space craft should require about the level of conscious thought most people use to drive a car.

It’s necessary to survival, so astronauts can handle unexpected emergencies quickly.

To this end, NASA has built a full model of every ship someone can encounter, including every part of the International Space Station.

They spread through the hanger.

Before their flights people train and practice in these models for a minimum of six years, doing crucial tasks over and over.





The models can’t match the real thing in one crucial respect, the lack of gravity.

To partially simulate this aspect of space flight, NASA engineers built what looks like a giant chicken roaster.

Smaller model can be inserted in this device and then spun around to simulate things moving in unexpected ways.





Part of the hanger holds a full sized model of the space shuttle without the wings.

At one point, it was the most used training model in the complex.

Since the shuttle program has been retired, the model will be moved to a science museum soon to make room for newer craft.

Our guide didn’t know who would receive it.





Some surprising things appeared in corners and cubbyholes of the hanger with careful observation.

The training models have all the sophistication and detail of movie sets, which requires a group of skilled craftsmen to build and maintain them.

Parts of the hanger held piles of tools and spare parts.

One area held old computer equipment from the 1970s.

Yet another held half-completed vehicle models that looked like something out of a science fiction film.

They are prototypes of manned vehicles for Mars.





On the way to the next building, we passed something poignant.

One of the roads has a series of planted trees along it, all in a row.

Each one has a plaque at the base.

They memorialize astronauts who died in the course of their duties, including the crews of Apollo 1 and the Challenger space shuttle.





Our third and final building was a very long warehouse marked Saturn V.

It holds one of three remaining complete examples of the rocket that took man to the moon (the others are at the Kennedy Space Center and the Smithsonian).

The rocket was originally outside, but it deteriorated so quickly in the Texas humidity NASA was forced to build the building and restore it.





The rocket is unbelievably large.

It has three separate stages, the first of which is the size of a small building and the second the size of a large shed.

The reproduction space capsule at the far end looks barely visible compared to the huge bulk behind it.

The wall behind the rocket contains panels celebrating each of the Apollo missions, including the five test missions that didn’t actually land on the moon.

They DON’T mention why NASA had this huge extra rocket lying around to display: President Richard Nixon cancelled the Apollo program in 1972 before its official completion date to save money.

NASA spaceflight history

The history museum starts with a film on the manned space program.

For anyone who knows anything about the history of NASA, it will be painfully familiar.

We then got to enter the museum itself.





The first section covers the history of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs.

Short displays describe each flight, who participated, and what they wanted to accomplish.

Most flights tested gear or researched procedures for later ones, ultimately reaching the moon with Apollo.





This area has some absolutely amazing artifacts.

The centerpiece is the actual command module from Apollo 15, fully restored with the door open.

The interior is unimaginably cramped, three tight seats facing an incredibly large control board.

The bottom contains a thick sheet of plastic nearly burned through; this is how the module survived reentering Earth’s atmosphere.

A video nearby shows astronauts discussing what it was like to walk on the moon.





Other artifacts sit on the surrounding walls.

The displays contain the gloves John Glenn wore on his first orbit by a US Astronaut around Earth, the boots Buzz Aldrin wore during his moon walk (the SECOND man on the moon), and the training version of the moon buggy.

It also has the mission book from Apollo 13, signed by all three astronauts; had they landed it would have been left behind on the lunar surface.

The entire section has low lighting, making photos difficult.





That leads into an enormous vault, which holds the largest collection of moon rocks on public display.

These are only a sample of a much larger collection, which are held in one of the buildings of the center.

All of the rocks are kept in air-tight plexiglass boxes, and scientists can only manipulate them with embedded thick plastic gloves.

The air seal ensures that the rocks stay pure chemically, since they never interacted with oxygen while on the moon.





The most common moon rock is actually a fine dust many call “lunar soil”.

It’s generated by meteorite impacts, and the lunar surface is absolutely covered in it.

Unlike Earth soil, which tends to have round particles, these are all jagged and sharp.

The display has one of the boxes the astronauts used to bring it back.





The center of the room has a piece of moon rock under plexiglass that visitors can reach under and touch.

It feels absolutely nothing like other moon rocks.

Not only has it been exposed to Earth’s atmosphere for four decades; the oil in peoples’ hands has changed it irrevocably.

Still, it’s one of only a few places to touch something genuinely from another world.





The next section covers Skylab, the first space station.

It occurred as a creative response to budget cuts.

This is the one section of the museum that admits that President Nixon ended the Apollo flights early.

In 1972, he viewed Apollo as an atrociously expensive program that had already achieved its real goal of beating the Russians; scientific exploration of the moon was a luxury the country could not afford.

After this decision, NASA had left over Saturn V rockets with no purpose.

Administrators decided to use one of them to launch a space station into orbit.

Skylab stayed in orbit for six years, after which it crashed into the Indian Ocean.





The section’s highlight is the actual Skylab training model, which once lived in the training hanger I saw on the tour.

Visitors can now walk through it.

Skylab’s design had a strict weight limit (to ensure the Saturn V could launch it) so the station is small and cramped.

It was essentially a pair of crossing metal tubes, with everything placed wherever they could fit.

The spot where the tubes cross had a long series of storage bunkers arranged in a circle.

In Skylab’s most memorable moment, a crew member filmed Commander Pete Conrad using these bunkers as a jogging track.

A monitor plays the footage.



The last section covers NASA’s most recent manned space flight programs, the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

The highlight is a scale model of the station.

Nearby, videos show crew members describing how different parts work.

Ever wonder how to produce drinkable water in space?

They showed us. (special filters that condense water breathed into the air, among other things)





This section has a number of artifacts from shuttle missions.

It has the space shuttle food that I saw back in Alamogordo (see Out Of This World) and astronaut toothpaste!

Three mission books are on display, including one for “Contingency Deorbit Process”.

It also has some spacesuits.





The third museum, the one on science, is definitely aimed at kids.

One part talks about gravity, and why planets orbit the sun, for example.

It does have some cool simulators, such as one that attempts to replicate a spacewalk.

I skipped most of it.





I enjoyed seeing the center, but it really helps to like science.

A visit here perfectly illustrated the huge enthusiasm gap NASA faces with the American public.

Most of my fellow visitors were either families with kids or obviously from outside the US.

For most US citizens, the high point of manned flight was the moon landings, which happened over four decades ago.

At the time, it was a race against the Russians for control of the heavens.

Supporting our part of large multinational cooperative science project doesn’t have the same compelling narrative.





Unfortunately, that lack of public engagement has important consequences.

The agency has had to live on a low budget for three plus decades now.

During our facilities tour, the guide talked about Orion, the planned replacement for the shuttle.

Designers at the space center have worked on it for the last three years.

It grew out of a much larger project called Constellation, which was cancelled after a decade due to lack of funds.

Nobody knows when the first Orion vehicle will launch, if ever, because development funding only appears in little bits.

Given the current battles over the deficit, the situation will almost certainly get worse in the coming years.

Man may never leave earth orbit again in any of our lifetimes.

San Jacinto

My other main sight today was San Jacinto, the Texas Yorktown.

After the Alamo massacre (see Historic Texas Pride), General Santa Ana marched northeast.

His goal was to wipe out the largest remaining settler army under Sam Houston, effectively ending the Texas Revolution.

He figured it would be as easy as the Alamo, thanks to an advantage in soldiers greater than two to one.

After burning multiple settler towns, he discovered that Houston’s army was positioned at the junction of the San Jacinto River and a large swampy estuary called Buffalo Bayou.





Sam Houston, the best military strategist in Texas, decided the only way he could beat Santa Ana was by surprise.

He had his men hide in the woods and tall grass near the Bayou, and stay there as the Mexican scouts and patrols came through.

The entire Mexican army then set up camp less than a mile away on April 24, 1836.

That afternoon, Sam Houston attacked and caught Santa Ana completely unaware.

Some historians have argued that Houston had little choice, since so many soldiers were eager to extract revenge for the Alamo and other massacres.

In any case, the attack worked beautifully; turning the huge Mexican army into a disorganized running mob.





That by itself wouldn’t mean much, because Santa Ana could always reorganize and counterattack, just as he had done in San Antonio.

What made this battle a turning point in Texas (and United States) history is that the Texans managed to capture Santa Ana.

Many wanted to kill him on the spot, but Houston realized the unique opportunity to gain much larger goals.

He forced Santa Ana to sign a treaty recognizing Texas independence with the Rio Grande as its border, in return for sparing his life.

Since Santa Ana was Mexico’s military dictator, Sam Houston realized such a treaty would bind the Mexican government.

San Jacinto is where Texans won their independence.





In Texas, everything must be larger than anywhere else, and that includes the battle monument.

It’s a tall granite obelisk with an enormous star on top.

Texans love to point out that it’s taller than the similarly shaped Washington Monument in Washington DC by the height of the star.

A long reflecting pool sits in front of the monument, which is also larger than its DC counterpart.

The rest of the site is restored to its look at the time, all open fields and clumps of trees.





The monument sits on a huge base.

In addition to views of the battlefield, it contains inscriptions describing the Texas fight for independence.

Like the Alamo museum, Texas pride shines at its largest at the end when the Republic of Texas joined the United States, provoking the Mexican American War.

By Texas logic, Sam Houston’s win at San Jacinto ultimately led to the United States acquiring over 30%!o(MISSING)f its final territory, making it one of the most influential battle wins in world history!

Personally, I think they are pushing the point too much, but it’s quite typical for Texas.





The area surrounding the battlefield once again illustrates the surreal environment of Houston’s (lack of) urban planning.

Buffalo Bayou is now the main Houston shipping channel.

Except for the battlefield, it’s completely surrounded by the largest group of petrochemical plants in the United States.

Gas fires and chemical smells permeate the area, a manmade hell on earth.

One complex along the road to the battlefield has scenes from the battle painted on their oil tanks, which I believe is not meant to be ironic.





I drove north toward Dallas tonight, and passed yet another example of the Texas obsession with big stuff.

The Interstate passes a sign for the Sam Houston Statue.

Its sixty seven feet tall, located right next to the highway.

In true Texas style, it’s the largest statues of a real person in the United States!

It’s light up at night too.

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Photos

Apollo capsule
Inside a genuine Apollo capsule from the Johnson Space Center

Johnson Space Center
On the grounds of the center

Mission Control
All shuttle flights and the ISS have been directed from this undistinguished building

Control room
Genuine space shuttle control room, now used for ISS training

ISS models
Training models for the Internation Space Station

Shuttle model
Former training model for the space shuttle

Model building area
A small sample of the equipment needed to maintain the models

Mars prototype
Test vehicle for a future Mars mission

Saturn V back
First and second stages of the Saturn V

Saturn V front
Command capsule and lunar lander section in front of the third stage of the Saturn V

Moon boots
Boots worn by Buzz Aldrin on the moon

Moon rocks
Small section of rocks from the moon, sorted by chemical composition

Skylab
Small section of the Skylab training model

ISS
Scale model of the International Space Station

Shuttle mission books
Mission checklists carried on space shuttle flights

Texas Independence Monument
The enormous Monument to Texas Independence

San Jacinto
Reflecting pool in front of the monument to Texas Independence

San Jacinto sunset
The sun sets over the battlefield