The agenda for today centered on the Space Museum here in
Huntsville. They have an impressive array of missiles and rockets displayed
outside, and a considerable amount of space memorabilia inside. An IMAX theater offers a film on the
Hubble Space Telescope and another on Space Junk. We elected to see the one on
the Hubble and started our afternoon in the theater. Unfortunately, so did a
couple hundred pre-teens. The kids were everywhere and pumped up on sugar and
the freedom of being out of the classroom. Think of it as a couple hundred
Ferris Buellers.
The noise was less outside, so we wandered among the
rockets, starting with the space shuttle mockup. You just don’t appreciate the
size of this thing until you are up close.
In the new (at least since I was last here) Davidson Center
is a complete Saturn V rocket, which you recall, is the vehicle used to send
men to the moon. It is over 360 feet long, so it was hard to get a decent photo.
Even the 1/10th scale model was too big to easily fit in the frame.
I was impressed by the power of the engines. There were five
in the first stage. Each one burned over a ton of fuel per second! Sort of like
our motorhome.
Speaking of motorhomes, the museum even has the astronaut's
RV! They used an Airstream trailer as quarantine quarters once they returned to
earth. There were six bunks and a table with six airline style seats. There was
no room to exercise or move around much. I think they were kept in there for
several days and I can only imagine that it felt very confining.
Hey, they even had a moon rock!
Barbara even found time to try on some new clothes!
We topped off the day with dinner at friends Bryan and
Jackie Butler whom we originally met while working at Lockheed Martin. They
have a beautiful home in Huntsville, and Jackie prepared a magnificent meal. It was a wonderful ending to our
trip.
Thanks Bryan and Jackie.
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