Laura with mission patches - Johnson Space Center
Laura's Mission Patch - Rocket Park
Clear Lake, Texas
JSC Entrance Gates (one of many)
Checkpoint! Show your badge...
Roadside Mission updates
Being all touristy with our new shirts...
Building 31N at Johnson
This sign cracks me up... maybe because I can't believe they'd have to EXPLAIN this to anyone around pristine off-world samples ;)
Poster for ARES - the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science curators
The Lunar Sample Laboratory. Door at the back of the room is the secure Lunar Vault.
The Lunar Sample Laboratory. Work tables, when not in active use, have dust-covers over the arm holes.
The Lunar Sample Laboratory.
Samples from Apollo 16 and Apollo 15
Moon rocks, me & Principle Scientist Andrea Mosie, who was kind enough to give us an LSL tour!
T38s at the Space Center Houston Tourist Entrance
One side of the public areas (Rocket Park)
Entering Rocket Park... note the Atlas and Redstone rockets in the background... !
The Saturn V Rocket at Johnson Space Center (currently being restored after many years of rotting outside on the lawn!) The very top is the third and smallest stage of the Saturn V launcher was the only one to reach Earth orbit. After circling the Earth once or twice, the astronauts fired its engine for the last time to blast their craft toward the moon.
Saturn V National Historic landmark plaque
Part of the Service Module, and the Command Module, a pressurized crew compartment only a little larger than a compact car. Special shields surrounded the CM to protect it from the intense heat generated by re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. The CM fell through the atmosphere until it was 24,000 feet above the sea. Small "drogue" parachutes opened to slow the descent, then main parachutes opened, slowing the craft enough to splash into the ocean safely.
Instrument unit of the third stage of the Saturn V
Vince touching the Interstage Ring between the third and second stages of the Saturn V
Apollo mission displays inside the Saturn V hangar
Instrument units in the third stage, which housed the "brains" of the Saturn V. Internal IBM computers steered the rocket motors, ensuring the space craft entered the correct orbit. In case of breakdown, each computer had three identical "sisters" that could take over.
J-2 Rocket Engine on the first stage, just below the liquid oxygen tank
Top of first stage, end of second stage.
Cluster of five F-1 engines on the second stage of the Saturn V rocket. When fuel ran out in the first stage, explosives detached it, and the five second-stage engines ignited. They lifted the launcher and the Apollo spacecraft to an altitude of 114 miles.
Vince in front of the first stage of the Saturn V rocket. The gigantic first stage was the height of a 10-story building, and when filled with propellant, made up half the weight of the rocket. Its giant 8-layer thick tanks fed fuel and oxidizer to five F-1 rocket engines, which lifted the launcher about 40 miles in less than 3 minutes. The motors of the first stage used paraffin fuel. When mixed with pure oxygen, paraffin explodes, producing enough power to lift the 3,048 ton launch vehicle into the air.
F-1 Rocket engines at the end of the first stage. The most powerful rocket engines ever developed.
End of the first stage. Wow that thing is huge...
The Mercury-Redstone. A one-man spacecraft-booster combination like this one, powered by a single A-7 engine, propelled the first two American astronauts (Alan Shepard & Gus Grissom) into space in 1961. Shepard's spacecraft reached an altitude of 101 nautical miles in a ballistic arc above the Earth. The flight lasted about 15 minutes, and Shepard was weightless for over 5. The vehicle reached a velocity of 5,000 miles per hour and landed 236 miles downrange. At liftoff the vehicle weighed about 66,000 pounds. Propellands were ethyl alcohol and water, and liquid oxygen.
The Little Joe II launch vehicle was used for Apollo spacecraft transonic and high-altitude testing at White Sands Test Facility (NM) during 1964-66, and represented an important milestone. It was powered by a variety of solid propellant rocket motors. In May 1965, this Command Module (CM) boilerplate (BP22) and Launch Escape System (LES) were launched atop Little Joe II like this one for a high-altitude abort test. Twenty-five seconds after liftoff the Little Joe unexpectedly began to break up and destroyed itself at 14,000 feet. The LES sensed the malfunction and fired, boosting this CM to 19,000 feet and away from danger, and the parachute system lowered the boilerplate to the desert below. Though unplanned, this emergency demonstrated successfully what the LES was designed to do. During the actual launch of the three-man Apollo CM, the LES was designed to propel the spacecraft and its crew to safety in the event of a Saturn launch vehicle failure on the pad or during powered flight.
A second stage F-1 engine outside the hangar in Rocket Park
Heather inside a Saturn H1 rocket engine
Saturn H1 rocket engine
