They also mentioned some of the military ones but not what they were doing of course. They weren’t always with people going up in them, but it was very often in the early years. The video below really doesn’t show you how big this is but I wanted to try!Ī great, close view of the underside of the Space Shuttle Endeavour Around the bottom of the shuttle is a really, really long timeline of events that have happened with the space programme and we were all really surprised (Mum and Dad too) how often there was a space flight going up. I just went “WOW” really loudly, so did each person and group that followed. When we got outside you have to open a door without a window in it and it was actually pretty quiet when I got there as it was a school day and it was during the week. I did find it a little hard to find as it had so many signs up everywhere but it was amazing when we actually arrived. We then walked outside to the separate area where you can find the actual space shuttle. You could feel all the shaking as you “flew” up and it even made you feel like you were “weightless”. We also had a go on a virtual journey of the space shuttle which I have never done before and I am so glad I had a go. They were a lot smaller than I thought they would be! I’m not sure how many flights the tyres would have had but I did expect them to be larger and wider. They also had the actual tyres (tires) from the space shuttle there that you could touch. Like what food they ate onboard, how they used the toilet and where they slept! There was an area where we could watch a video of both the shuttle and the external tank arriving separately to the centre which was well worth watching and then a main exhibit area where you could see the inside activities that they performed. Space Shuttle Endeavour ExhibitionThis was in two parts. Also seeing the heat shield like this really shows you how much the area gets hit by re-entry. There was the Viking Lander, Astronaut spacesuits from Apollo missions there and so much more, this could easily become a photo journal! What really got me excited was seeing the capsules and thinking what it would be like to live and work in there with others. The marking on it shows that it doesn’t come back centered in the middle – it came back at an angle. As it came through the atmosphere the outer surface burned away into a gas and what you see here is a carbon residue left over. We also saw this Heatshield from the Gemini 11. This flew for 2 days, 23 hours, 17 minutes on 44 orbits! We also saw the Gemini 11 Space Capsule – this launched in September 1966 with 2 crew Charles Conrad Jr and Richard Gordon Jr. This was once a light metal colour and now you can see the damage to the outside after going through the atmosphere. It gives you some idea of the size of it. I love this picture of me in front of the Apollo Soyuz Command Module. Only 3 months later Alan Shepard became the first man to ever fly in space in a similar capsule. This ACTUAL capsule above had a chimpanzee called Ham in it and he did the first short flight into space and returned back to Earth. It was originally launched two weeks after my birthday 57 years ago! (Back in 1961) The first thing we saw was a lot of Command Modules! It was amazing to walk in and see them all! See the images of the Mercury-Redstone 2 Module and read all about what it had done. When we first got in to the centre we headed straight to the Space area – there are a few exhibits that you can visit at the centre including a Tutankhamun Exhibition as well. This large building had a lot to show us! We knew the Space Shuttle Endeavour could be found here but beyond that we weren’t sure what to expect. My Dad had read that the centre wasn’t very far away from the airport and surprised me with this place! We arrived just after lunch time and as we were there during the school week in America, it wasn’t very busy. We had packed our rental apartment up that was in San Diego and drove the two and a half hours from there to Los Angeles but our flight wasn’t until the evening. Make sure you read all about those days out too! This was all part of the amazing trip I had with my family in California that also included a trip to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and also to the San Diego Air and Space Museum. My last stop before returning back to Ireland earlier this month was at the California Science Centre in Los Angeles.
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