A scant 30 miles in the general direction of Houston lies Clear Lake. We booked a couple of nights at the Holiday Inn in Kemah, Clear Lake's main town. We had plenty of time to wander around the Kemah Boardwalk in the noontime heat (not so much of a sea breeze here). Looks to be a great place for families and kids: luckily, they are all in school now. The Lonely Planet recommended the Aquarium, a 50,000 gallon tank of some very large fish that doubles up as a restaurant, so we headed there for a decent meal for a change (as opposed to our recently frequent bar meals). Not cheap, but you get to eat your seafood platter in front of a huge aquarium full of groupers, sharks and morays, all observing you from behind a magnifying glass wall. Surreal!
Of course, the real reason we're here: the Johnson Space Centre. No kids; no queues. Great fun for the inner geek child. Some pictures:
Linda lost amongst the rockets
Dave holding up the shuttle program
"It's life Jim, but not as we know it."
The whole programme was slick and efficient. We got to visit the original mission control room (it had been disassembled and placed in the Smithsonian but later faithfully reassembled) which was oddly moving. Especially when you got close to the truly primitive equipment they had to use to do all those wonderful things in the sixties. The IMAX and Blast Off theatres were pretty much concentrated on the success of the Curiosity rover and the International Space Station but, really, the whole experience felt sad: a celebration of past glories. They claim to have had an American in space every day for the last 13 years but play down the fact that they can't get them there. Or back. After the Sci-Fi Con with it's focus on the new wave of private space exploration like the SpaceX company, one cannot help but get the feeling that the US, through NASA, has dropped our species' ball. Betcha China won't! We'll see how their asteroid capturing project fares. Or whether Congress will cut the budget.
