To Nasa and beyond!

As part of my newly expanded role at HP, I had yet another travel opportunity.  This time, I traveled to Houston where I could meet with Jaff, who was flying from Scotland for a business review with the manufacturing team. Since I would be taking over Jaff's work, this was a chance for me to meet the manufacturing team and get quickly up to speed on the strategies and programs for 2014.  After whirlwind week of meetings, I stayed an extra day to attend a Christmas party hosted by Suzanne.  With a day free before the party, it was suggested that I head out to NASA for a tour.

My coworkers Suzanne and James

In the parking lot, they have a model of the space shuttle.  The Houston site was very upset that they did not get an actual Space Shuttle after they were retired. 

This building houses a Saturn 5 rocket.  This was used in the early NASA missions.  This thing is huge, no picture can do it justice.

I tried to do a panorama of the Saturn 5 rocket, but you just can't see how big it is and how small the module is at the very tip for holding the astronauts.  

Here are several prototype modules for possible travel on another planet.  These will be built up to allow astronauts to live within them for weeks if necessary.

Prototypes of different rover modules for exploring planets & moons unmanned.

As part of the tour, they have a working model of the international space station.  This includes modules made by all the other countries.  This is a place for training on how the living conditions will feel like, practicing for any condition that they may experience in space.

A better view of the different modules as they reside on the floor of building 9. 

This is a model of the current Mars Rover.

As the sign says, they have one of only 8 lunar rocks that can be touched by the public.  Lots on deisplay to look at, but only the one below can be touched.

The little triangle piece is moon rock.  It's rather well protected.  You have to reach your hand up at an awkward angle to reach it.  Felt smooth, nothing really special, but glad I can say I touched the moon.

If you've ever watched Apollo 13, there's a scene where the oxygen scrubbers aren't working, not designed for three people in the LEM.  The engineers back in Houston are tasked with getting the square scrubber in the round hole with only the articles on-board.  This is what was used to help save the Apollo 13 mission.

This podium was at Rice University when President Kennedy gave his famous speach where he says "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Meanwhile back in Roseville, Nate was ringing the Salvation Army bell for the Cub Scouts.

He started making his Gingerbread house.

Charlie, Nate's Elf On The Shelf came for his annual visit, things got a little messy when Charlie dove into the chocolate. 

Here's Charlie checking out Nate's new snowboard (more on that in the next post).