9:46 a.m. - 2003-03-28
Space Center
" 'When the rockets go up, who cares where they come down!
That's not my department!' says Werner Von Braun" --Tom Lehrer
Saw big rockets yesterday. Thought of Seth! Helen wanted to go to the big NASA advertisement, ooh, I mean the Space and Rocket Center. Did you know your Kroger Grocery card also gets you a discount on admission to the Space and Rocket Center?
Actually I had fun, in between getting all haired out over the fact that there is just barely the faintest whisp of an admission that Werner Von Braun was a Nazi and designed the rockets which busted up my beautiful England in WWII. Huntsville in general is very good at covering up this quite interesting fact, because, you know my dear, Von Braun put Huntsville on the map!! And he didn't really want to use all that Jewish slave labor to build those rockets! He was forced to! Uh huh!!
Oh dear, I feel a rant coming on. Don't worry, I'm getting out the duct tape for my mouth!
Ahem. Anyway, I had a good, although somewhat overwhelming, time. There is nothing about this place that isn't larger than life. Do you know how big a Saturn 5 rocket is? They have several of them at the Center, including the Penis of Huntsville. Big. Dang. Rocket.
At one point I looked over at Helen and realised that both of us were just staring at them with our mouths open.
I don't even know where to begin. The museum itself starts with a truly hokey movie about the space program in Huntsville. It's introduced by a female astronaut who looks pretty high mileage and is wearing blue make up. The rest of the movie consists of an insipid folkey-country song about "A time for courage....woooooo ooohhh..." and shows scenes of Werner being carried around on people's shoulders.
Gad.
From there we wandered on to an overwhelming display of rocket scientist paraphenalia, old space capsules, and astronaut accoutrements. This was all spiced up with descriptions of the rocket scientists' achievements, which were guaranteed to enthrall the average fruitbat. For example:
"Evolution of the blunt body concept allowed the hot re-entry shock wave to be absorbed and dissipated over the nose cone's entire outside skin."
WOW!!
I also found out something really fascinating, which I'm just dying to share with you. Because it answers a question that I know, in the back of your heads, every single one of you has asked.
How do astronauts pee and poop?
Nonchalantly placed in a case, along with the A7L Integrated Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment, is the Urine Collection Transfer Assembly.
It is a strange little baggy sort of thing. They cryptically state that it is worn over the Constant Wear or Liquid Cooling Garment. It's attached by a roll-on cuff!
Right next to this fascinating object is the Apollo Fecal Containment Bag. They are even more cryptic about this, stating only that, after use, it is rolled up and placed in a drawer located on the right wall of the equipment bay of the command module. Nice!
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