I've been in a NASA kind of mood lately. I think it started with seeing the movie Gravity at the IMAX a couple of years a ago. Then Interstellar came out and blew my mind. FOX brought back Cosmos with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. The Martian was excellent. I think these movies and shows rekindled my interest in all things space related. I always loved NASA stuff as a kid. I had a big NASA poster on my wall and a model Space Shuttle growing up. I even had a pretty sophisticated and thorough manual on how to fly the Shuttle. But as I grew up and realized my strengths and interests didn't lie in Math or STEM, I kind of let that phase pass. I focused on studying the Liberal Arts and Humanities. I still loved the big ideas of science, but the technicalities were beyond my skill set.
Then these movies and shows got me back into it. So I started looking at more than fiction. I began reading up on the recent expeditions to Mars such as NASA and JPL successfully landing a rover the size of a MINI Cooper on the surface of Mars. Space X and Virgin Galactic are doing incredible things. Space X just successfully landed a reusable rocket on a drone barge in the middle of the ocean. Crazy stuff!
Being in the space mood, we traveled down to Houston over Spring Break to visit the Johnson Space Center, among other sights. The Space Center is a pretty cool place. My nine-year-old son loved it, as did I. We saw the original Mission Control center that guided the Apollo missions. We saw massive rockets and amazing interactive exhibits. It was a pretty cool trip. My son is really big into all this science and engineering and already says he wants to be a rocket or robotics engineer. I remember feeling the same thing at his age, only difference is he actually enjoys doing science and math homework.
So this summer we're going to continue the theme and take him down to Cape Canaveral, Florida. We're going to spend a few days at Cocoa Beach and tour the Kennedy Space Center which is even more massive than Space Center Houston. I visited Cocoa Beach and toured Kennedy when I was in eighth grade and had a blast. My son can't wait. We're going to visit other places in Florida as well, but for my son, Cape Canaveral will be the number one attraction.
