Tuesday, November 20, 2007

"Houston... We Have a Field Trip"

Today we went to NASA. It's been on my to-do list for awhile, and since my parents are in town for the holiday, we thought we'd knock it out. We took the kids, and it was pretty impressive. There is a real space shuttle you can board (with fake tiles, because each one costs one million dollars), a piece of moon rock you can touch, and a space lab you can walk through and see where astronauts sleep, go to the bathroom and hang out. We missed the tour of the real training facility, because we were dangerously past nap time.

The film summarizing our history of space exploration was remarkably moving. I don't know if I'm just overly emotional because it's Thanksiving, or by some miracle of all miracles, I am pregnant- but this film made me cry. The Challenger footage brought me back to Hawaii, where I was living for the time- and moments before the Challenger exploded, I was looking for my shoe before school. My Dad offered to help me, but wanted to watch the take off first, on live news. So there we both stood, me with one shoe on, on our lanai overlooking Pearl Harbor. Funny how you remember what you were doing during historic moments.

Random trivia- did you know tempurpedic mattresses were first created for astronauts seats? It cushions their bodies during the g-forces.

More random trivia- Lucy charmed the entire NASA crowd today by announcing in the space lab "Astronauts, they are cool, huh!"

1 comment:

mrsf5 said...

As many times as we've visited Houston, we've never taken the kids to NASA. (Note to self: take kids to NASA.) Glad y'all had fun!

Also: totally identify with the weeping-for-no-reason thing. We turned on the Macy's parade for the muppers yesterday, and I promptly burst into tears.

I'm blaming my outburst on being sick, though, because Birth More Children is so NOT on my to-do list. Sending good thoughts your way, however...