NASA 3/31/2011

The next morning after touring New Orleans we headed east towards Pass Christian, Mississippi.

Shortly after crossing the border we found a beautiful visitors center rest area and to our surprise the head quarters for touring Nasa's Rocket Test Center. We decided to take a tour. So we boarded a bus and were shuttled to the facility several miles away. It was thrilling to be on NASA land and see their facilities.

Seeing as how this is the test facility for all unmanned and manned and manned space exploration rockets, there were plenty of old rockets and engines around to see up close.

 This is one of 4 test sites in this several thousand acre site.  They were not testing rockets this day.  Bummer!!

They also had a museum/educational center that had tons of neat displays, including this mock up of the zero gravity shower used on the International Space Lab being constructed in Earth Orbit.

Also a capsule from the pre-moon exploration period.  It was pretty burned from re-entry friction!

Ann went into outer space and did a little moon exploration while we were there.  People always look taller on the moon!

This is a Saturn Rocket Engine.  There were usually 4-5 of these huge things on each Saturn Booster, depending on the pay load.  These were the rockets that were used to send our men to the moon.

Behind us is a rocket from the Mercury program that took several astronauts into pre orbit flights as well as putting John Glenn up for his historic 3 passes around the Earth.

It was amazing how small the Mercury rockets were.  Here is the one you saw behind us, only closer up.  There is a replica, up top, of the first satellite we put up, using this type rocket.

This was a lunar landing module trainer used for the astronauts to practice in while here on earth.

 

A fascinating day long tour that put us finally arriving in Pass Christian late in the afternoon.  We stayed here one night.  Beautiful park called TLC Wolf River Park.