• Houston, We Have a Problem

  

  Day 83 

  Okay, we did the NASA thing (actually, the Houston Space Center). On a scale of 1 to 10, we give it a hearty 6.5.

  Now here’s the thing: It’s about space. So that makes it cool. We ventured through the most stunning exhibits! Life size replicas of rockets, pods, the moon (joking), & astronauts. And we got to rub shiny, black moon rock. I have rubbed shoulders with the moon, ladies and gentlemen. The best part was the initial introductory movie featuring all the expeditions that got our neck hair standing on end. How freaky is that? We are razzle-dazzling in environments that are completely inhospitable to humankind.

  Also neat: the Canadarm. Terrible name. It’s the giant arm that moves super heavy space stuff on space stations and on earth. Except they needed a lighter one for earth (aptly named Canadarm2) because of the terrible weight of gravity (I incidentally weigh more on earth than Mars, so I am packing my bags). That’s right, I paid attention. And it’s wicked because that arm is a Canada arm. So we are no longer the hat of America, we are now a U.S. appendage.

  Things that discontented us….

  Oh, the patriotism. If you haven’t guessed, we’re a little anti-let’s-brag-about-how-great-we-are. Applies to any country. The whole thing was about how awesome the US was because they had already met their space objectives, while the USSR was struggling to keep up. It wasn’t offensive —tastefully worded, I suppose. But it was so tired! And we were so tired of speed reading those bristol board brags.

  Other things that sucked: of all the exhibits, only 30% actually worked. The ball was missing for the gravity measurer, the scale was broken for the Your Weight on Different Planets exhibit. I do NOT weigh onehunafu—nevermind pounds. The flight simulator was a crock and didn’t even let you steer. Everything was covered in plastic sheeting, so you couldn’t dingle any buttons. I love dingling. Just see if we can get this ole’ rocket started, shall we? Not only this but it was time to upgrade some software. They used Macs but they hadn’t been updated since 2001. Consequently, none of the simulation games worked, and any of the interactive parts looked 8-bit at best. For a space museum, you would have expected bells and lasers, right?

  The rest you had to pay for. Granted it was only $4 for the virtual ride and $4 for the air-hockey type chair, but when you already have to pay $25/person at the door, it hardly seems worth it.

  Then there was the tram tour. Our guide looked like she had the Hiney (H1N1) and would rather have her head in a meat grinder than be repeating the listless words she said through her CB mic. We stopped at two places and walked up 89 + 26 stairs. So that’s what, a million? And it was air conditioned to take the nipples off a tourist! We did get to sit in the old mission control room where the first moon landing was coordinated and saw the astronaut training room, but I was kind of jaded by that time, so I forget what was so great about it. And the chairs were musty. No offence, NASA.

  The most disappointing thing was that there was nothing about the future of space travel. Nothing about projected next steps. Just a whole lot of “hey, if we used the moon’s helium3 we could really light a lot of light bulbs”. Meh. We wanted a pop-up book of all the crazy Mars Rover, Jupiter splend-ventures that are bubbling up to the NASA surface in the next decade. Sad that Travis read more about the future of space exploration on Wikipedia than at the actual home of all things space. And we all now how reliable Wikipedia can be (right, Anders?).

  One for the record book. And a place for which there is likely no reason to return. That is, unless they start making space travel super affordable. Like a $59.99 special. Then we’re in.

  Posted on January 13, 2010

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