I waited a couple of weeks to write a review, hoping that the "meh" would wear off some. My wife and I were in Houston and planned an extra day to see and tour the Johnson Space Center. We both grew up in the Apollo era, and have been space history fans ever since. So, here are our impressions after the $25 paid admission:
The Good
- The Mars plans exhibits are wonderful, with enough replicas, details, and visuals to give us hope for the future of manned space exploration. The hands-on exhibits are pretty generic and aimed at children and those who might be starting from little knowledge.
- The space suit exhibits and development evolution are very interesting, and well done. As are the astronaut histories and crew information for all the manned space flights. If you want to know just how hard it really is to be an astronaut, read Shuttle astronaut Mike Mullane's "Riding Rockets" and Mary Roach's wonderful "Packing for Mars" books. Both are adult reads, but really make you wonder how badly people would want to be astronauts to go through all that they do and the risks they assume.
- The retired but restored Gemini/Apollo/Shuttle control room, the only stop on one of the tram tours, is very well done and the audio/visual presentation put together to celebrate the Apollo 11 landing clearly brings back the memory of that achievement. Be ready to walk up 87 stairs (there is an elevator for 4-5 people at a time to the 4th floor for the presentation and through-the-glass viewing.
- The Shuttle Transport Aircraft, the 747 centerpiece of the outdoor area, is impressive, even with only a replica shuttle on top. The big jet's interior has good displays and information, but is accessible only as a room.
- The building dedicated to housing a laid-on-its-side, segmented Saturn V-Apollo system is still, 50 years later, overwhelming in its size and complexity. This is the real deal, a rocket system that was ready to go to the moon if the program hadn't been stopped early. As an engineer, I wondered then and still am so impressed that the missions were so successful with the technology of the day, regardless of the cost.
The "Meh"
- The other tour included in the general admission tour has two stops on a roundabout route during which the guide points out several NASA buildings without telling much about them, much less allowing guests to see what goes on there. You're pushed through in *15 minutes* each: the rocket yard (with Saturn/Apollo and a couple of outdoor rockets), and the mockup facility, a giant room with mockups of current and planned hardware and support equipment. Our tour guide had a captive audience for his apparent, future career plan as a stand-up comic basing his schtick on puns. Asking him questions during the stops got no more detail than his overview of the rooms, and the tour would have been more interesting with a knowledgeable docent aboard instead of a people-herder. The tour that will show you the neutral buoyancy pool and other points of space travel interest costs $180 each...
- Which brings up the "docent" point... In a $25 admission we would have expected to engage guides inside the building and out who have knowledge of the exhibits, history, and plans. At the (free) Udvar-Hazy Wing of the Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport in Virginia for example, the exhibits, including arm's-length access to the Shuttle Discovery and comparative artifacts to the Johnson Center, there are people very willing to engage in conversation about the details of nearly anything in there, the more technical the better. Interactive displays and videos can only go so deep into your interest.
The building is nicely done for its purpose, to continue and create interest in manned space flight. We wondered if a lot of the people who come here are already interested, and looking for more. NASA is better represented in Florida and certainly at Air & Space.