NASA

So in the last post I tried to post larger photos but I thought they looked fuzzy so I don't think I'll be doing that again. If you would like to see any of the photos in a larger format you can just click directly on them.

I LOVED going to NASA - and the girls enjoyed it too. We studied astronomy last year in school so it was a good time for us to go and get to see in real life some of the things we'd been learning about.

We signed up for a bus tour that took us to all the different launching pads and around the rather huge NASA complex. My brother-in-law supplied me with all these awesome photos because I left my camera in the car - thanks Stacy! Here's a picture of him that Meggie took at the beginning of the tour. He's pretty funny.

This next building is huge and houses the space shuttle. The blue rectangle on the flag is as big as a basketball field and our bus could drive up one of the red stripes as they are as wide as a car lane. It was very impressive!

We viewed several launch sites - I think this is where they shot off the Apollo rockets. I was surprised to learn that they flood the area around the launch pad with thousands of gallons of water in order to diffuse the sound, that's why there is a big water tank to the left of the pad.

We also got to see a preserved portion of the actual mission control area that sent Apollo 11 to the moon. The guides said that the computers and equipment all still worked - but it looked very antiquated to me. It's truly amazing to realize they made it to the moon given the technology available at the time. The next few pictures are of an actual Apollo rocket, they built 15 and only launched 12. The size was awesome.

Can you believe this thing that looks like it is just a mass of tinfoil landed on the moon?

This is the van that the astronauts ride in to get from the place where they suit up to the launch site.

We also saw some amazing 3-D IMAX movies about the Hubble telescope and about the Apollo program. The big girls rode a shuttle simulator ride and said it was pretty intense! Unfortunately it made Lilly quite ill so we called it a day at 5 pm but we'd been there eight hours already so that's pretty impressive. There was a lot more that we didn't see so I would like to return in the future - we didn't tour an actual shuttle or go to the Astronaut Hall of Fame. We also missed the opportunity to meet and ask questions of a real astronaut, so next time we'll hit those things first. All in all it was a great experience and I would highly recommend it!