for real deal

did you know that a 200 foot long, 40 foot deep pool will hold 6.2 million gallons of water and take over a month to fill?









did you know that a rocket that sends people to the moon, when laid down, is longer than a football field? (click on these pictures to see their full size, and then notice the people standing around)














did you know that when astronauts are in space, they have to exercise or their bones will deteriorate and their muscles will shrink because they aren't having to use them as much?


did you know?!

did you know???

did you KNOW????


(this is the crew in space right now - on the STS-119 on the spaceship Discovery.)

oh my word. i just spent a few hours walking around the johnson space center in houston, and good GRIEF it was cool. thank you SO MUCH jeremy. it. was. awesome. he didn't think he would get to take me into the mission control center since there's a shuttle up right now, but he found out last night (he's been working 9pm-6am for 2 weeks) that he COULD! so i got to watch the people at their desks communicating with the people way up there. no wait - there. *points* or maybe it's over there...anyway, it was amazing. very overwhelming. i felt like i was at disney world, which was kinda sad because this was the real deal.

he also found out that he had access to take me into see the HUGE pool (see above stats and pic) where they train with weightlessness, and there were actually people down there training which he said he had never seen. people in huge white space suits floating around working on a mock space station. wow.

and we got to walk around where they train in normal gravity just to learn where everything is at the station.






and i got to see an actual rocket that didn't actually go to the moon, but it could have - it wasn't just a model. (see above stats and pic)

and i got to see an exact replica of the "cock pit" of one of the shuttles. during launch, it's a rocket. in space, it's a space ship. during landing, it's an airplane. so many buttons. so many switches. such a small space. he took a picture of me sitting there...i'll upload pictures later...um...probably to my facebook. all these pics are just from google images.




anyway, it. was. so. cool. i knew nothing (well, very very little) about anything they did before going in, and now i'm a walking information source. well, i've forgotten most of it...but it was unbelievably fun to hear about it first hand today.

i go home tomorrow and i'm very, very sad. that's all.