NASA Education in Huntsville Alabama

Peggy and I just returned from a great trip to Huntsville, Alabama...home to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center (a tax-funded museum) and the Marshall Space Flight Center (a NASA research center). The picture on the left provides a unique view of the rocket that took the Apollo astronauts to the Moon 40 years ago. The room that houses this Saturn V is over 400 feet long. You can see a few more photos at this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049923&id=1393465136&l=f6117eac25

I was there to attend a three-day seminar. Each morning we had workshops demonstrating how to teach principles of space flight and exploration. Each afternoon we toured the Marshall complex to hear first-hand from NASA scientists about the work being done on the new generation of Ares launch rockets and Orion crew vehicles.

It is a terrible shame that the space program has been essentially directionless for the last 30 years or so. Even now, when the Federal government is looking for ways to spend money, they just aren't interested in space exploration in spite of the fact that the space program has spawned such economic boons as the telecommunication industry (satellite TV, global positioning technology, wireless communication), enhanced medical technology, and all the technology that depends on the miniaturization that space exploration precipitated.  Even in its underfunded condition, NASA employees thousands of highly paid technicians and represents the last bastion of American manufacturing. Ares rockets are NOT made in China.

Speaking of China, they are trying to get to the Moon before we get back there again. Seems a little reminiscent of Spain and England competing for ownership of the Americas several centuries ago. Back then some people probably said "what good is the American wilderness anyway. You can't make money with that."

Some of my seminar classmates were interesting. Have you ever heard of a space artist? Here's a link...    www.edwinfaughn.com.  It was also fun to see how even the high-tech guys have problems. Our last activity of the seminar was building solid fuel rockets and taking them out to the rocket range to test fly them. Our NASA instructors were very smug about knowing the best way to build and fly model rockets. Sounds like a natural for NASA to lead, right? Well none of the rockets would fire no matter what the NASA educators tried. Turns out they recieved a bad batch of solid fuel igniters. Made in China.