NASA – the ultimate traveller

To those who look beyond the horizon and wonder, NASA’s journeys have been inspirational.

We remember where we were on 21st July 1969; Roger at home in Wimbledon in front of the family’s b&w tv, Hilary on holiday watching on Swedish tv with her parents. Grainy images of Neil Armstrong descending onto the moon are part of our lives.

Now – 48 years later at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre near Houston – we saw a full size prototype of the Saturn V rocket and sat in Mission Control. This was a travel experience to treasure.

The historic Mission Control Room looked much smaller in real life. There’s more computing power in our iPad than in those desks.

We expected to stay at the touristy Space Centre for a couple of hours but ended up leaving late afternoon. It was not only a wonderful nostalgic trip. As you may know, NASA are now actively working towards a manned Mars landing in the 2030’s, so there were plenty of pitches for continued funding.

The last craft to go round the Moon – Apollo 17. And we got to touch it!

The piggy-backing of the Shuttle onto a 747 was surely one of NASA’s craziest ideas. But it worked

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