It’s hard to imagine, as one who’s watched such behemoths launched from via the confines of a TV set, the incredible size — the equally incredible power — this rocket represents. If it hadn’t been for Apollo missions cancelled after 1973, visitors to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Centre and astronaut training facility would never have a chance to wonder at the wonder of it all.
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Delivered in sections from three unused Saturns between 1977 and 1979, the gleaming white, reconstructed 111-metre long rocket sat outdoors before getting a restorative coat of paint and a permanent protective preserve in 2007.
Launch craft typically separated from space capsules that held mission crews, then disintegrated upon re-entering earth’s atmosphere. The sections that survived mankind’s early ventures into the great beyond were capsules.
One such capsule is on the rocket’s nose, seeming amazingly small and left unpainted, demonstrating the scarring and friction of re-entry.
Not far away, a real treat awaits anyone who, like me, watched in awe as National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) crews rocketed into space on missions with names of Greek gods of eons ago, Apollo and Mercury.
The previously named Mission Spacecraft Center was launched with legislation in 1958 that Johnson, a future president and senator from Texas, presented after President John F. Kennedy promised an American on the moon by 1961 — achieved 11 years later by Commander Neil Alden Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr. with Apollo 11.
Inside building 30 is the original 1963-1995 control centre, restored to its 1967 appearance.
From theatre seats, looking through glass at the now-empty desks and silent monitors while sampling sights and sounds from historic launch films, it was easy to imagine short-haired men with thick glasses anxiously gazing at projected images, cheering successes and grimly watching occasional tragic failures.
The missions were launched hundreds of miles away in Florida, at Cape Canaveral — later renamed Cape Kennedy — but it was to here that crews communicated via radio, reporting progress and, on occasions, with the chillingly calm and famous words, “Houston, we have a problem.”
For those of us who remember watching from a time when the lure of the outer limits was so fresh, it truly is like stepping back in time.
As our guide explained with tantalizing candidness, on the other side of the wall — inaccessible to visitors — successors to those long-ago technicians, scientists, engineers and supervisors guide the flights of today. And tomorrow.
ian.robertson@sunmedia.ca
GETTING THERE
Several airlines, including Air Canada, operate direct flights from Toronto to Houston. Flight time: 3 hours, 10 minutes.
Space Center Houston — the visitor centre of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center — is at 1601 NASA Parkway, about 40 km south of downtown Houston in the NASA/Clear Lake area.
TIPS
Escorted tram tours of the 16,000-employee Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center take 90 minutes while Space Centre Houston is ideal for space fans and others interested in how humans got, and get, where few have gone before. Tickets $8-$10, children to seniors, online discounts available atspacecenter.org.
Capsules from Mercury, Apollo and Gemini missions are on display, dioramas complete with vehicles and space-suited figures show the first steps on the moon, you can look inside a gravity-free training site as a full-size figure floats above, and during missions, the “Blast off Theatre” carries live feeds from the NASA control centre.
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