”Hey Houston, we’ve a problem here”

After 13 hours in a flight from Istanbul is it time to fill the fresh air in Houston. Mads and I is landing at 18.30 Houston time where we are picked up in a silver Lincoln towards our Hotel on the six-lane Road 59 North, where we are going to stay the next days. My first meal in Houston, Texas is of cause going to be a good 14 oz. steak, which is just as good as you can expect.

When you talk about Houston, you also talk about the NASA Center from where the historical Control Center for the first moon landing was located. By arriving at the NASA Center, you already fill that you are at an important place. By arriving at the parking lane can a big Boing 747 with a space shuttle on top can be seen. We are taking the blue tour which are taking us out to Christopher C. Kraft. Jr. Mission Control Center and an Apollo racket. We get on a truck from where the tour will begin. When we are driving out to the massive environment of different buildings where it is impressing to hear the story of this place and imagine how much high-tec technology there is behind this big yellow-grey walls.

87 steps

The first stop on your tour and some may say the most important is the Control Center of the Apollo missions back in the 60’s and early 70’s. To get to the historical Control Center do we need to take all the 87 steps up (they talk about the 87 steps as it was a mountain we needed to clime). By arriving to this room does it fill like going back to the 60’s, the Control Center has been rebuilding, so all the original things are here . We are sitting in the red chairs in front of the window from where we can see the whole Control Center. At this time was there only one computer running the whole operation with a 2 MB harddisk, so the employees need to use there brains a lot. This is also the reason why they had 3, 9 hours shift at the Control Center back in the 60’s-70’s because it took an hour to handle over all the information from one shift to another.

While sitting in the red chair where families could go and come 24 hours a day to see how the operations was going, can I see the red phone, which was the direct line to Washington, so they could get the latest updates about the operation immediately. A little bit further down at the right corner can an American flag be seen, our guide on this tour tells us that this is the real backup flag for the Apollo 11 with Niel Amstrong, in case the original flag didn’t work when they landed on the moon. By sitting in this room at this time even though that it is nearly 46 years ago, the first man walked on the moon, it seems like you are there, you are back to the late 60’s, when the first man walked on the moon.

Back on the truck is the sound of the speech of George W. Bush from 2003, coming out of the speaker when we hid the memorial lane. It is the powerful speech he did after the Space shuttle Colombia exploded on its way back to the earth in 1st of February 2003. This disaster showed how big a price astronauts can be taking.

It has been told that the technology which NASA right now is working on will first be available for normal consumers 30 years later. The though of this is difficult to understand which makes it even more difficult to understand how good engineering and how many people have been working on the Apollo project. While I’m entering the building on the last stop where the Apollo racket that never was sent to the Moon is, I need to stop for a moment just to understand what my eyes are seeing just in front of me. First I only see 5 big engines. Everyone is more than double the size of me. Then I see the American flag and the letters; “USA” down on the side of the Apollo racket. It is a special filling that’s run through my body when I’m walking beside this huge engineering master piece, knowing that this might not be here today, if they had decided to make another moon expedition. Today nearly 46 years after the first man on the moon said, “that’s one small stop for man, one giant leap for mankind”, which to today had lead to the planning of going to Mars.