German Adventures of David, Tammy, AJ and Michael: NASA!!!!!!!!!!!

So on Monday July 20th, Porchea scored us a private tour of NASA!!! We were all extremely excited about it!!!! I am not sure if the adults or the children were more excited. :-)

We stopped for a little lunch at Sonics before we headed out to NASA.

Waiting for our clearance to enter NASA.

Adam was our "tour" guide for our trip. He is actually building the next rocket that will take US astronauts into space!! How cool is that?!?

This is a mock up of the shuttle they used to use. The kids loved pushing all the buttons!!

They were very attentive and asked some wonderful questions.

Michael was trying to figure out what all the buttons meant.

We headed into the mission control center to see the old and the new control center.

The man he was pointing out is Christopher Kraft who was one of the 10 original astronauts and was also was the man who designed the first mission control center.

So this is the original NASA control center, you see the glass and the people behind it? That is where we would be if we weren't on our private tour. We would only be able to look and not touch in there.

They have all the mission patches that were flown out of this control center.

Adam was telling them about Apollo 13 and what the people in the control room was going through trying to get them home.

This is the mirror from the Apollo 13 that they looked at the Earth with. It is the only thing kept from that mission. The astronauts gave it to them as a gift for all that they did to bring them home.

The view from the flight operation director chair.

I am so glad that the boys were so interested in everything and asking so many questions.

Michael sitting in the flight director's chair. The chair where everything happened for all the missions.

My turn, it is also where they made the movie Apollo 13. How cool is that!?!

And AJ's turn - I think the boys look good in the chair!

Adam was nice enough to let the kids take the time to play with all the buttons and tell some great stories!

Like how they didn't have e-mail back then and the tube that AJ is holding is how they sent messages to their teams. Also when they couldn't leave the control center their team would send donuts up in them.

Next he took us to the mission control center that they are using now. On the monitors are the astronauts that are currently up in space. They were talking to them while we were there.

This is the flight director's desk now, look on the monitor on the left where you see the green. Yep he is watching golf.

The front door into mission control.

Next we were able to the Space Vehicle Mock Up Facility. This is where the astronauts go to train in the mock ups. If you look on the far wall where the blue line is - that is where everybody else has to be. They only get to walk over the top and look down at it, not be on the floor.

This is where the astronauts used to train when they still flew these shuttles. Once inside the shuttle gets tilted up. They had their funding cut so that is why the US is not sending any shuttles up at this time.

This is one of the trucks that they use and the gold headed guy in the back is actually a robot they were trying out.

This is a new technology that they are trying out for their mission to Mars. They are trying to figure out a way where they won't contaminate anything. So the suits would be attached to this and the astronauts would climb in the back and then be zipped up.

This is the Arachnid Climber. It is the next in extra-vehicular robotics that is supposed to need less maintenance. It also has eight legs which it makes more stable and higher payloads and more support.

The boys heading into the shuttle mock up.

My turn - it is awesome to be able to go in where the astronauts trained!

The boys trying out how the astronauts slept. I am not sure if they think it is comfortable or not. The lockers behind are filled with so many things. Each astronaut only had one drawer. The others were filled with medical supplies, tools, food, etc.

AJ and Michael in the pilot and co-pilot seat - they were in hog heaven with all the levers and buttons to push!!!

I had to take a turn in the chair!!!

AJ always ready to learn and ask more questions. Thankfully Adam was great about answering them.

Michael heading back down to the lower level. You can see how small the opening is they have to maneuver.

AJ's turn, down he goes!!!

This is their bathroom they had to use. The door wouldn't close all the way and it is right down where everybody is, not a lot of privacy.

They could only have six people at a time in there, so we went first and now the rest of the crew is in there and AJ is just chilling.

The boys tried out the chair, it had a lot of padding for when they land back on Earth.

The motley crew - having a great time checking out all the cool stuff at NASA!!!

This is the mock up of the space station where the astronauts are right now. The room wasn't big enough to have it exactly like it is in space, but it is close so they can train here. One cool thing is this was the anniversary of the Apollo 11. They had interviews going on, etc while we were there.

This is the space shuttle that they are taking up to space now. The US astronauts now catch a ride with the Russians. Our astronauts have to learn to read and speak Russian. As you can see their space shuttle is a lot smaller than ours. For the 8 hour ride, they are almost eating their knees.

You can see some of the patches here on the international space station.

Here are all the pieces of the space station. It started in 1988 and took decades to finish it. It is used for science experiments. One cool thing I found out about NASA is that an elementary school sent an experiment to them wondering what a spider would do in space. NASA liked the idea and told them to come up with the experiment and then they launched a spider into space and followed through with it!

Next we went to Rocket Park. This rocket was supposed to be launched into space but never went. You can see the size of it and I couldn't even get it all in the picture.

This was the second set of engines to boost it up into space.

These are the big ones that get it all moving off the ground. There are five of them.

The third set to make that final push out of the atmosphere. It is amazing how many parts they need to get it up into space.

After the wonderful private tour - the kids were done and wore out!

Our view as we were leaving NASA. It was so awesome, words can't describe being able to see and touch everything in there!!!! And to have a personal, well versed in the knowledge of all things NASA.