We took our two sons, ages 10 and 11, on a home school field trip on our way to Austin, TX. I booked our tickets online and printed them from the hotel business center, and that process went without any trouble. I bundled the audio tour and the tram tour into our online ticket. I thought we might be there 3 hours. We arrived when the doors opened, and we didn't even get to do the audio tour we had paid for, because there was so much to do! We were shooed out of the Independence airplane/shuttle display as they were closing the museum before we really had a chance to fully appreciate it. We easily could have spent another full day there to see all of the exhibits. The tram tour is worth the extra money, as you get to see the original Mission Control room, the training center, and a very large Saturn rocket that was built for the next Apollo mission before the mission got cancelled. We packed a picnic lunch, and the staff stamped our hands and allowed us to leave the building and get back in without any hassle. The two movies were excellent, and there were two live shows that were excellent as well: One was a very high-energy presentation by a woman chemist/physicist/scientist whose presentation was geared mostly for 4-8 year olds, but was still enjoyable for us, covering concepts of what would happen to your lungs and blood and body if you went in space without a space suit. She also had liquid nitrogen and did a few freezing demonstrations. The other presentation was geared more to 12-adults, with a dry-humor discussion about life on the International Space Station. There were plenty of "hands on" exhibits, such as landing the shuttle, docking the shuttle, pumping up air pressure to launch a rocket, etc, to keep my boys thoroughly entertained and learning. The only bad mark I would give, is that two very fun-looking "rides" were not included in the general admission, and were $7 each for about a 5-minute ride each. We chose not to add the extra cost to our day, and the boys were a bit disappointed by it. It would have been nicer if at least one of these rides were included in the general admission price. Overall, if we are ever driving through Houston again, we will probably try to get back to the Space Center and finish seeing all that is there to see.