What the Hell!…
Not too long ago in a place far far away there was a group of fools who decided to take a road trip to Sooooouth Houston -the Johnson Space Center was the destination. Those fools didn’t know that they were fools until they paid to get in to the building. What was supposed to be an educationally entertaining visit to the most famous space agency on the planet was really a trip to the local children’s fun park with a whole lot of space talk and the occassional cool relic of the great American scientific hay days.
For 22 stink’n bucks a person -children under 4 free, you get to walk around a bunch of stuff and rides (that you have to pay extra for) and possibly the coolest 4 story playscape that was ever constructed. This playscape is not only ultra neato but it most surely has to harness the largest supply of kid germs on the planet -in fact I smelled the smell of a messy diaper so often I thought it could have been me or at least my travel companions.
You’d think that in the wake of the first attempt back into space since the burn up of shuttle 4 years ago that they would have put on some kinda show with guys in tight suits, little plastic helmets and a jet pack strapped to their backs…did I say guys??? I meant fine space women -handing out free beer tickets and turkey legs wrapped in bacon begging for you to come see the space flight show-supposed to make you feel like you’re really there and sure to knock your socks off… What ever! The whole thing lasted 15 minutes and ended with a 15 yr old kid who looks like the asshole sports agent from Jerry McGuire talking to you about something he never witnessed but learned from the brochures at the front of the building. My 5yr old nephew told my dad that he was bored so we went back to the play scape, crashed a couple of space shuttles in the simulator, docked some fake cargo and walked through a mock up of the last failure our space agency had -space lab and ate a $6 peanut butter and jelly space sandwich.
Well, all in all we got to see nothing of the actual space center and learned nothing. I’d say that if you really wanted to visit a space program then your best bet would be to befriend Lance from the Back Street Boys or whichever gay boy band and see if you could piggy back on his next Rusky space flight as a modern day version of Leica the space dog.