Fly Me To The Moon (Post #6)

It was raining hard when we arrived late afternoon at our hotel in Newport Oregon. We stayed at the Hallmark Resort there and I loved the property. Our room overlooked the beach and even though it was raining we could enjoy the view thanks to the comfy chairs placed in front of our sliders.

There's a nice restaurant called Georgies Beachside Grill right next door and that's where we had dinner. Call ahead is suggested and while it was crowded we didn't have to wait long. Also, order the seafood saute-yum!

We were seated in a booth and shortly after we sat down two couples were seated in the booth opposite ours, an older gentleman and his wife and a younger gentleman and his wife. We noticed the younger man was wearing an obviously well-loved flight jacket covered in patches and we wondered about his story. We weren't eavesdropping (not exactly anyway), but the booths were close together so we couldn't help but overhear snippets of their conversation. We heard NASA mentioned several times and also the words Mercury 7, Gemini,  Mars and a few other space related terms which peaked our interest. We convinced ourselves the older gentleman had been an astronaut and were determined to figure out who he was.

So we did what everyone does in 2017 and started googling images of astronauts from the 1960's. I discovered pretty quickly the original Mercury 7 are all deceased and he didn't appear to be one of the Gemini crew either. We were stumped.

At this point I might have carried on wondering and might have left never knowing, but Hubs LOVES all things space related so was not going to let it go.

As we were eating and googling they handed something small to our waitress and we heard them say it had been to the moon. English was not our servers first language and it seemed she didn't really understand what was happening but we did. Ha! When she came over we asked her if she knew the customer's name and she didn't but she did very helpfully walk back to their table and say 'Those people want to meet you.'

So we got up and introductions were made and we shook hands and y'all it just turned into the most fun thing. Hubs point blank asked the older gentleman whose name turned out to be Norman Chaffee (no relation to Roger Chaffee) if he was an astronaut and he said no, but that he did work in the space program. If you read his online bio you'll know that's a bit of an understatement. He was a very important part of the space program and was the engineer who designed the thrusters on Apollo 11. He worked on additional missions to both the moon and Mars and what he had shown the waitress was a piece of the heat shield that, as he put it, was 'just behind Neil Armstrong's backside' protecting him as he rocketed to the moon.

Really what happened was, we made introductions and someone mentioned the space station and hubs whipped out his phone and showed them the app he follows that tells you when the space station is passing over your head, and that's when they said, 'Ah, you're a science geek...pull up some chairs and join us.'

So we did because, of course.

The second man at the table was Jim Loftus, son of the former Assistant Director of the Johnson Space Center. He runs a museum now near Salem Oregon and was accompanying Mr. Chaffee the next day to speak to high school students from around the state. Jim Loftus' dad was at one time Norman Chaffee's boss, and was instrumental in selecting the original Mercury 7 and also later program astronauts. When Mr. Loftus saw hubs had that app on his phone he said, 'Wait right here, I'll go get his baby'. I wasn't sure what he meant, but he was back in a flash carrying a rocket thruster. Absolutely made hubs day!

In a funny coincidence Mr. Chaffee (who lives in Texas) has a daughter living not far from us here in the Palmetto State. Hubs did what he always does and invited him to visit us at the lake next time he's in town. They've exchanged emails since and we certainly hope he takes us up on it.

As we were leaving Mr. Loftus said to my husband how impressed he was that we spoke up. That people miss out on so many wonderful things in life because they don't seize the day.

Hubs is a master at seizing the day.

A Scathing Review

Okay, not scathing but I've always wanted to use that word in my blog and now I have. And this isn't actually a review-more a recap and then my thoughts on it all. Incidentally, nobody asked for my thoughts but I'm putting them out there just the same. You're welcome.

While in Houston we decided to visit the Johnson Space Center. Hubs is especially interested in that sort of thing and it was indoors which sounded good to Daughter1 and I on a sultry Saturday in July so off we went.

I'm not sure what I was expecting but I think I imagined something along the lines of the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC...exhibits, time lines, artifacts, and some interactive stuff too...you know, educational but in a good way.

After queuing outside in the heat and then having my purse searched (they always open my bag, roll their eyes, and send me on my way because seriously, you don't want to dig around in my purse if you don't have to) we finally stepped into the main entry hall. It was teeming, and I do mean teeming, with little children running to and fro. I mean so many little children you had to watch where you were walking or you might be taken out by one as he whizzes past. Oh my aching ears-the noise-WOWZA! The very first thing you see upon entry is a ginormous indoor playset-the kind with climbing nets going to the ceiling, tunnels to crawl thru and ball pits. I can imagine unsuspecting parents entering the Space Center with children and immediately having to negotiate the playground. It smacks you in the face so I'm pretty sure if your 5 or 6 year old lays eyes on it they are going to want to play sooner rather than later. Who wants to see boring old space stuff when you've got an indoor playground and a ball pit? Why is this at the entry?

I realize it's Houston and its hot and folks need places to go in the summertime but this seemed like an odd place to put a play area. The Space Center offers various tram tours and we opted for the white tour at the recommendation of our ticket agent who gushed about the fact that it's only offered in July and is a do not miss. The white tour took you to the Neutral Buoyancy Lab which we all wanted to see. She neglected to mention it was a 15-20 minute bus ride each way. In addition we stood in the queue 30 minutes, went thru another security screening and then sat on the bus almost 20 minutes while we waited on a guide to get back from another tour before we could depart. Who runs this place anyway? Oh yeah-the government. It's certainly not Walt.

Once you were on the bus you were more or less trapped. There were three adults in wheelchairs who required a great deal of assistance yet they did not board them first or reserve any seating in the front of the bus for the handicapped. The young employee who helped them board sweetly asked a woman in the front row if she and her children (who were elementary school aged) would mind moving back and she said, yes-she'd mind. So these three folks who had very obvious handicaps and struggled mightily to walk had to make their way to open seats all the way in the back of the bus. My daughter and I shifted so they could have our seats but we were already about halfway back anyway. This whole scenario absolutely made my blood boil. Is this the kind of example we're now setting for our children? Every man for himself? I got here first and tough luck to whoever is behind me? My husband nicely said something to the tour guide once we FINALLY reached our destination and on the ride back they did reserve the front row for those who truly needed the front row.

Soooo, two hours after entering the Space Center we finally see our first space related exhibit-the neutral buoyancy lab.

This is where you'll find the big giant pool they use to test procedures, develop hardware, and train astronauts for working in space. Essentially neutral buoyancy mimics reduced gravity and is something close to what they will experience in space. Not exact, but close. It's hard to photograph from behind glass but inside the pool are full sized mock shuttle cargo bays, flight payloads, and I think a replica of at least a portion of the International Space Station. The pool is massive and up until the recent Olympics in China was the largest pool in the world. It's now the second largest at over 200 feet long, over 100 feet wide and over 40 feet deep. Astronauts are brave, aren't they?

Once we made it back to the Space Center we had some very expensive chicken tenders and regrouped. Now, please don't misunderstand...I love kids of all ages, shapes, and sizes, but something about this whole set up just seemed wrong. In a way it seemed a little bit disrespectful to the very serious job an astronaut is trained to do. Besides the playground there were games and all sorts of non-space related attractions.

Pirates? Are there pirates in space? Do we need to turn everything in to entertainment for the kids? I think we need places for kids to play but I'm just not sure the Johnson Space Center should be one of them. At the very least the "let's keep the little ones happy" portion could be a side show as opposed to the main attraction.

We've been to the Air and Space museum in D.C. many times. It's free. The Johnson Space Center is pricey for what you get, at least in my opinion. I'm ranting and I know I'm ranting but I've had this rant bottled up inside me for a few days and it needs to go somewhere. Some days I'm glad I have a blog.

We had opted for the audio tour (an extra charge) and it included remarks like, "by the year 2001 blah blah blah..." Dear NASA-it's 2011. Signed a Concerned Citizen. We had to really look for the space exhibits but eventually we did see some of what the Space Center is truly all about. We took turns attempting to land the shuttle-

fyi-it's harder than it looks.

I could never be an astronaut. I mean besides having to do things like float above the earth and live and breathe in a confined space that spins all while keeping your breakfast, lunch, and dinner down, as you solve complicated mathematical equations you also have to land a machine with a dashboard that has buttons on the ceiling and looks like this-

There's also the little matter of this-

That would be the ladies room in case you can't tell. The men's room too I guess. When you're in outer space such things probably don't matter.

Daughter1 and I agree we won't be living in space until they make it more like The Jetsons. I bet some people reading here don't even know who The Jetsons are. You probably grew up playing video games and could land the shuttle with your eyes closed too.