Field Trippin' Part 1:The Space and Rocket Center

We are taking this week off of school to get some family fun trips (and some good fall cleaning) done. Yesterday we went to the Space and Rocket Center.

From left: 1. We don't know what this is. 2.Redstone Rocket 3.Jupiter C 4. Mercury Redstone (Thank you Nathaniel for telling what is what. Next time we have to learn what the other one is)



Blow up of the page of a Florida newspaper the day the astronauts first returned from the moon.


My favorite guys with a F-1 Engine (once again thank Nathaniel for telling us what this is)


Mark and Benjamin putting their hands in an astronaut glove trying to get an idea of how hard it is to do things in space.


Samuel and Nathaniel took a turn, too.


J-2 engine. In addition to the five F-1s, the Saturn V also has six of these! (Guess where that nugget of info came from)


This is Dawn. She was great!! She showed the boys how to make model rockets out of 35mm film canisters, alka-seltzers and water


Mixing the ingredients



Launchpad


Samuel with his rocket after it launched


Walking "on the moon"


On the Kiddie Cosmos Ride


Nathaniel checking out his favorite rocket from Project Mercury- the Mercury Atlas


I am a very lucky mom to have my very own Apollo flight crew


Nathaniel on the shuttle landing simulator


Benjamin on the Build a Shuttle Game


Samuel playing Asteroids


This is what almost all of the pictures of Mark and me togther look like, however, thanks to Benjamin......


...we now have this one!!

This trip was loads of fun. There are more pictures, but I think if you stayed long enough to see all these you are probably ready to get back to your life now. We always learn something when we go to the Sapce and Rocket Center. This trip we learned that maybe Nathaniel is not ready for Space Camp yet. He has been asking to go since he was about six years old.
I have no idea what he thought it would be like. We tried to get him to ride something called the Space Shot. (Like the Kiddie Cosmo ride only goes waaay higher and waaaay faster)He did not want to. REALLY did not want to. When he found out that Space Campers do lots of simulators that are just like real astronaut training he said. "Oh." That's all he said. So that is something that we have to consider. Can you imagine sending him off for a week, knowing that he is not going to enjoy it AT ALL?!?!? Well, we had a great time anyway yesterday.

Coming soon-Field Trippin' Part 2: The Pumpkin Patch