20 March 2023, Houston, USA, Johnson Space Center –

Today we learned that Ground Control would never have directly communicated with Major Tom … but I’m getting ahead of myself.  We were up bright and early for our much anticipated VIP Tour at Johnson Space Center – a behind-the-scenes tour for a group of just 10 people.  And it lived up to expectations, taking us away from the theme park atmosphere of the visitor complex, and into the real workings of NASA.

First stop was the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory, or SAIL – NASA loves acronyms – home of the “ghost shuttle”.  This was a high-fidelity, flight-ready mockup which was never launched, but was used on the ground to mirror the shuttle flights and assist with resolving any problems.  The walls were stripped out of the payload bay and the mid deck, so we could see all 250 miles of cabling – mind boggling.  Then we were able to scramble up a ladder up into the flight deck – a very confined space, where we could sit in the commander’s and pilot’s seats, on the proviso we didn’t push any buttons!  We’ve seen a number of replica Shuttle cockpits, but this is the closest you can get to the real thing.  Very cool.

Next we called into the Crew and Thermal Systems department, where they work on spacesuits, as well as accessories like tethers.  It is here – and only here – you can see what’s actually inside those big white box things (pressurised life support systems) on the back of a spacesuit.  You also get a good look at the “waste management system” – what we Aussies would call the dunny.

Our final stop was the one we’d been waiting for – the famous Mission Control Center.  We were taken behind the silver doors, and into the current Mission Control room.  Here we were watching a live mission; the International Space Station (ISS) with its new crew who arrived 10 days ago.  We could see one astronaut working on some equipment, and another one giving a media interview, on the large screens, as well as numerous displays. 

Most of the consoles were manned, and our guide explained all the various roles.  She told us that only CapCom talks directly to the astronauts (hence with all due respective to the late great David Bowie, his lyric was factually incorrect).  The Flight Director is in charge of everything, and even outranks the US President when making mission-related decisions.  Despite the fact that they train for this job for a decade, he looked like little more than a teenager. I could have watched for hours, but we were shooed out so that the Secret Service could do a security sweep, prior to some visiting dignitaries coming into the room.  I am not making this up.

Never mind – up another flight of stairs, and we were now in the Historic Mission Control Room – set up to look exactly as it did during the Apollo 11 mission, right down to the ashtrays full of cigarette butts.  Not only did we get a good look from the viewing room, behind the glass, but we were taken down onto the actual floor!  Amazing to be standing where so much history occurred.

I was fascinated by the contour map of the lunar surface (lots of depressions), but more so by the “high tech” method they employed to show where Armstrong and Aldrin were positioned at any given moment on the moon.  They had two paper cutout figures stuck to a large board.  Every time the two astronauts moved, it was someone’s job to reposition the paper cutouts correspondingly.  They also used this method to ensure they were within view of the TV camera during significant moments.  These days they’d just put a GPS tracker on them.

Way too soon, our 3 hour tour was over. It was all fascinating. Back in the visitor complex, we signed up for the tram tour that we skipped on Saturday.  We learned that JSC is home to deer, coyotes and alligators; the deer roam freely, close to the buildings to steer clear of the coyotes.  Our final stop was the Saturn V rocket, the only one on display in the world that is fully certified to fly.  So ended our Space Center visits – but there are more rockets to see later in the week.  Tomorrow we are off to the beach.