The NASA Raid

800*600

After Encounter Report: The NASA Raid


NASA hangar X


As a family and as representatives of a klingon warship, we visited the NASA in Houston and spent the fair portion of a day there.
This is a museum about Texas history. It is a museum about U.S. history. It is a museum about Earth history.

We were able to see space capsules and equipment that the earther's used to establish their primitive foothold in space. In fact, while observing the actual Mercury and even the current shuttle equipment, it was shocking how primitive the equipment really was and still is. I now understand the 1960's concept of "spam in a can".

They have many "hands on" displays that both the grups and the kids and enjoy. A mock up command center is hooked to a mock shuttle and mock apollo. The kids can communicate with each other via video and headsets to do their "missions". There are remote control (radio controled) mars landers that can be controlled from the mock shuttle.

A more grup experience is the "zero g" trainer. You are strapped into a chair that has airjets for manuevering. You are floated on an overgrown air hockey type table. As in Zero Friction! You are given an assignment and have only 2 minute to complete the assignment and dock the chair. Very few of the grups made it back in time. Most grups were totally lost and had to be retrieved. It was obvious that most mundanes watch space stuff on the TV, but don't understand it. The easy concepts of reaction thrust manuevering were a total lost on nearly everybody that I saw trying that chair. It was fun to watch and heckle the operators as a klingon with the "know" to do it.
Eventually, I was challenged by the operator and a few other guests and I strapped in to do it to it. It was fun. I completed the assignment and was lined up to dock too early in the 2 minute period so the chair operator twisted me away from the docking port just to give me a challenge. As the beer belly bubbas laughed at what she did, I recovered and docked with 3 seconds to spare.

We also toured the "Historic Mission Control". It is the same building that Captain Kirk burgled the gun camera from Captain Christopher's Thud. We were able to see where the Gemini and Apollo launches were controlled from and their mission plaques on the walls. Awesome!
One of the stops was the hanger where they stored the X craft. It had 3 copies of the X33 in it while we were there. We also toured the very live mockups of the equipment in space and about to be sent to space. This was the building and equipment where the astronaughts train for their missions. It was interesting to note that the Soyuz was the only real space ship in that room. It was defective and the CCCR sent it to NASA for the Apollo-Soyuz missions.

This is a tour recommended for any Trek fan. Just wear your uniforms. This is the place to show the interest in space.


Strength and Honor

Cdr. Salek Sutai
Ship's Brewer
An Approved Brewmaster of the Empire
www.janissaries.net


                 


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