Thousands of scientists and scholars in different corners of the world have been studying our universe for centuries. Up to now, it is completely unknown how many more surprises the space has prepared for us. What can we say about the billions of people for whom this sphere is a complete mystery that attracts humanity to the unknown with a magnet. Find out more at i-houston.
Relatively recently, for those who want to set out on an excursion outside the globe, kind people began to organize such tours. However, the tourist should prepare to pay crazy money for such a trip. It is paradoxical but true that there are a lot of such individuals.
The citizens of Houston can attribute themselves to the lucky list in this aspect, because they are within arm’s reach to the part of the unknown in its original form.
Space. Foundation
First of all, it should be noted that a significant contribution to the development of this sphere was made by the native of Ukraine and the city of Zhytomyr, Sergiy Pavlovych Korolev. All world scientists and experts consider this outstanding man the godfather of spacecraft. Nobody will argue with this.
Who knows, in what form the space industry would have survived to the present days, but perhaps partly thanks to Mr. Sergiy, the first headquarters of the NASA space agency was opened in Houston. By the way, 1958 is considered to be the official date of its foundation. So it is not surprising that sooner or later, this event would leave its mark in the largest city of Texas in the form of a museum, with the life of which we will get acquainted in detail.
34 years after the official founding of the NASA agency on October 16, 1992, at NASA Parkway, for residents of the city and not only, a scientific museum was opened, which has the status of a visitor center of the Johnson Space Center. It should be noted that the flight control and astronaut training center is named in its honor.
To open the museum, the building was not built from scratch because Johnson’s second space center was chosen as the room for future exhibits. It is not known for certain, but it was the scale that became the main criterion to choose a place. The size is really impressive. There are an astonishing 23 thousand square meters of area, which should have housed more than 400 exhibits, “artifacts” in the cosmic language that impress with their criteria. We are convinced that at least in words a little bit of this “Starship” collection needs to be announced.
Main roles
This gallery includes exhibits that are generally familiar to the human eye. However, their role and functions as well as belonging to the space industry are not always known to the community.
A complete copy of the spacecraft “Independence”, which is located on the roof of the Carrier Aircraft 905 shuttle, should be considered the undoubted highlight of the artifacts. It should be added that there are two such shuttles in the museum. The second one is based outside the center.
Here we will also add the command modules of the legendary ships Apollo 17 and Apollo 11. The first one made history forever when in 1971, it delivered Eugene Cernan, Harrison H. Schmitt, Ronald B. Evans and five mice to the moon.
It is impossible not to mention the capsule Gemini 5, which is known for the fact that back in 1965 it launched astronauts Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad into orbit.
A shocking exhibit is considered to be a monster in a kind way, which is officially called Saturn-V, known as the super-heavy launch vehicle of the Saturn dynasty.
However, this is just a drop in the ocean from what visitors of the museum can enjoy. The missile park of the center is especially popular. This is absolutely not surprising because rocket carriers have always attracted people like a magnet.
This museum is by right one of the most delicious tourist dishes for guests of the city, which is worth a taste. In order to experience that for yourself, it is worth visiting this building, which will take the guests of the center beyond reality for several hours. The aftertaste of this dessert is not worth talking about at all.