Lunch with an Astronaut

Houston, Texas
Johnson Space Center 

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Today we had lunch with an Astronaut.

This is Dr. Scott Parazynski.  He has flown on 5 shuttle missions which total 1381 hours in space and has spent 47 hours outside the shuttle on space walks.  On three of his missions they docked at the International Space Station.  How many people do you know who have traveled 23 million miles in space and then went on to climb Mount Everest?  Dr Parazynski is really a medical doctor.  After graduating from medical school he joined the astronaut program. He came over and sat down with us at lunch.  Grandpa got to talk about flying airplanes and skiing in Utah.  Dr. Parazynski flies jets and has skied at Deer Valley and Park City several times. 

 In this building you see training copies of the different rooms or modules in the International Space Station.   Inside these training modules astronauts would see every button, control or computer just as it is in the real space station. This area is in use everyday training astronauts for their space missions.

There is also a full size shuttle that the astronauts used to train in.  As the space shuttles have been retired, there is no longer a need to train astronauts in this mock up so it is being separated into 3 pieces  so it can be sent to a museum.  

If I were the captain of a space shuttle this is where I would sit and these are the controls I would have to learn.  No wonder it takes two or three years to train for one space shuttle flight.  You can't see all of the buttons above the captain on the roof or all the controls on the other side either.

Hanging from the ceiling is a real old space capsule.  This is not a training copy. This is one of the first Mercury capsules that flew in space.  I believe it is the Mercury capsule used in the flight just after John Glens first US orbital flight.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Atlas_6 

Grandma is standing by a Saturn 5 rocket.  These are the biggest and most powerful rockets ever built.  Saturn 5 rockets launched all of the Apollo moon missions.  This is a real Saturn 5 but it was not used because congress cut off the funding for any more moon missions before it was used.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program

To give you a better idea how big it is .... This is a full size painting of the Saturn 5 on the outside of the building.

Here is a picture looking from the top towards the base.  The dark brown area near the top is the Apollo capsule that held 3 astronauts.

Two would get in the lunar lander and walk on the moon while the third would stay in the Apollo capsule.

This is what it looks like on the moon. Notice how black the sky is behind the Astronauts.  Those are real moon suits that they used to practice for the moon missions The moon rover to the right was used by NASA to train the Apollo astronauts who were going to use a moon "buggy" on their moon mission.

One of the most important jobs the Apollo moon astronauts did was to collect moon rocks.  The rocks that they brought back are the most rare and expensive rocks in this world.  Many times more expensive than diamonds or gold.  

This is Grandpa's left hand and I am touching a small black piece of moon rock.  So tonight look up at the moon and know that Grandpa and Grandma reached out and touched the moon today.

Love G & G