Texas and NASA.

For the second time in my life I have been to the USA, this time to Texas. I went to a conference in Galveston, many hours away from Sweden. A colleague in our group, Mats also attended the conference. During the times we did not have talks it was quite difficult see the area since you require some sort of personal transport to go anywhere. There are ample roads but no easily accessible public transport. Still, the hotel is next to the sea and we could walk (next to a road) along the shoreline:

The conference started on the Sunday (we arrived on Thursday) ended on the following Friday. On the Thursday afternoon we went to NASA's Johnson Space Center  in Houston. We went on a guided tour and saw a number of awesome things. Below are a few pictures:

The Space-Vehicle-Mock-Up-Facility. Here, full size models of the international space station, launch capsules, rovers and other equipment are used by the astronauts to train:

Rocket Park. Engines used by the Saturn rockets:

And the best, a full size Saturn Rocket (same as the one used to go to the moon):

The excursion to NASA was really nice. The content of the conference was also very interesting. However, when I travel again, it will probably be in Europe :)

R