Roadschool Trip to Huntsville

Our youngest has been airplane and space crazy since he could show preferences....  Any time we're near a NASA or airplane museum, stopping is a must!

En route to our Virginia job, we stopped off at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville.  It was a rainy day, so the outdoor activities were off the table, but a very friendly docent gave us a behind-the-scenes tour of the newest section of the museum, which will open next summer.

The Space Camp section of the museum will soon be is now open to the public for tours, and this friendly docent led us behind-the-scenes to check out all of the new stuff.  It's so new that some of it wasn't even finished yet!

We learned how to launch rockets, step by step.  Then we went to see the huge transport aircraft that bring materials to the building pads.  When we rounded the corner, we came upon a group of Boy Scouts just getting ready to have a presentation.  We asked, and the leader said that we could sit in with them.  Score!  This satisfied so many of the requirements for the boys' astronomy badge.  We learned a bit, too?  Do you the names of the first two monkeys sent into space?  *see answer at bottom*

Near the carnival rides, we were able to go into a mock-up of the lunar module landing site.  We examined moon rocks at the site.  Back inside the main building, we tried our hands at handling the space capsule.  We checked out all of the training exercises and equipment used by students that attend Space Camp.  Have you seen the movie Space Camp?  It's one of my little astronaut's favorites!

Getting to see the space shuttle was pretty amazing!  It's such an important piece of American science history.  Back at the hotel, the boys took a moment and dug up meteorites.

**Abel & Baker**