The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted but to the brave

Houston ... Houston ..... do you hear me? 
I repeat, Houston ... Houston .... do you hear me?

Does the sentence ring you a bell? Yeah, if you like the science fiction movies about outer space, you should know what does it mean (Recall: Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in Armaggedon movie). For me, as I watch that kind of movie, as well as work with satellite imagery, I do familiar with a voice calling Houston ... Houston, and here I am now, at Houston (not only at the city but at the place where it's called 'Houston' on radio call-sign).

Yeah, I just visited the Lyndon B Johnson space center on Sunday morning. That is the center for flight control of US space program. Awesome, finally I have opportunity to visit this center. Two years back, I visited NASA launch site at Kennedy Space Center Orlando Florida, but I do wanna see the one in Houston.

Actually the Lyndon Johnson center has less display compare to Kennedy Space Center, but it seems like very important. 'coz that's the place to communicate with the astronaut on board. Look, above is pic of the building for the flight control. It's named Christopher C Kraft Jr., a retired NASA astronaut who was establishing the agency of Mission Control Center (MCC). This is the building from where the radio call-sign 'Houston' came from. This is Houston MCC or MCC-H, awesome!

And here is the White Flight Control Room (FCR) at the building. This White FCR was operationally used from 1998-2011. Look at the fourth row, where the Flight Director (the person in charge of the flight) and CAPCOM (an astronaut who is usually talk to the astronaut on board) used to sit. I imagine myself to see the room is still operating, and the CAPCOM were talking to the astronaut on board of the space shuttle, displayed on the right side of the screen in front. Wow .... !!

Okay, next display to see is rocket building. Look at the huge box above that painted with the rocket picture and named Saturn-V (Saturn Five), that's the rocket building. What is inside? 'Wow!!', that was my first word come up when get inside the building. One of the surviving Saturn-V rocket, the tallest, heaviest and most powerful rocket, is housed there. It's so huge, a gigantic vehicle (I thought, even bigger than Boeing 747). I'm telling you, it's so large!! and this guy can glide into space?? wonderful .....

The Saturn-Five rocket was used for Apollo and Skylab programs. The rocket has four compartments/parts (just like the picture shown outside of the building/box). The first three compartments are usually called stages, and the fourth compartment is called instrument unit. The above pic just show the first two parts (the large parts), the other two cannot be seen in this pic 'coz too long to be captured in one snap.

It was a good experiences to see the MCC-H. From now if I watch similar movie, I can imagine from where the conversations with the astronauts on board were made.