Wolverhampton City Learning Centre (CLC)

On the 19th of September 2005 Archana, Hitesh, Samantha and I, all pupils at Highfields Science Specialist School set off on the trip of a life time to see the real NASA. We were going to meet world famous British and American, Astronauts and Cosmonauts, and see some of Florida’s and Houston’s best tourist and VIP attractions.  The trip started with a one night stay in London. Near Gatwick  airport where we met all the other ISSET winners from around the country.  The day after was the day in my opinion where the trip really started and where I really began to get excited.

It was an early start, we all had to wake up at 6:00am to catch our 10:30am flight which I found pretty hard but just about managed.  The flight to Houston was a 9 hour flight, landing at 7:30pm followed by an hour drive to the Wakulla Hotel where we would spend the next 4 nights.  That night I couldn’t sleep, a mixture of the humid weather and great excitement made it really hard to sleep.

In the morning we went for a short walk to the nearby beach where we could see the launching sight of the Apollo missions.  Later that day we visited the Apollo/Saturn V centre where I saw the historic Gemini and Apollo capsules and the amazing Saturn V rocket which size stunned me as the picture I’d earlier seen just didn’t depict it’s ‘humongous’ size.

Day four, I thought was the best day of all, it was the day we were all put to the test though some of the vigorous astronaut training programme. This involved a short briefing followed by a moon walk.  A contraption with springs attached to a harness was used to make us 6 times lighter, the same weight reduction as on the moon due to its weaker gravity.  Then we went on a three axis sphere called the tri axis trainer which is designed to give the same feelings as an out of control rocket or shuttle, this made some people fell sick, but most of us, including me found it no problem.  After all our training we were tested in a shuttle flight simulator which simulated takeoff, obit and landing, all were very difficult tasks.  Finally we went on a G Force simulator which gave the same amount of G force as a F14 Tomcat, this is about 4 to 5 G’s, 1 G means 2x your normal body weight so when it goes up to about 4/5 G’s it begins to hurt, but it was still the highlight of the day to me.

Day five was our last day in Florida, this was the day we went to the IMAX movie ‘Magnificent Desolation’ a 3D film on the Apollo missions and moon travel. The film in 3D really did help us to imagine what astronauts who went to the moon saw and witnessed.  Later that day we visited the launch sight of the Apollo and Gemini missions as well as modern day rocket and shuttle missions.   This to me was a real highlight of the trip, because these are just such important sights in the whole history of space travel.

The night before we flew to Houston we were told that Hurricane Wilma was going be coming to Florida the next day.  Some of the students started to get scared by this news, but I was pretty excited.  To think that we would be in a ‘real life’ hurricane, after having heard so much about them in the past.   

The following morning was very windy and very rainy.  We didn’t see too much as the eye didn’t hit us directly.   We were still able to fly to Houston, Texas the home of NASA’s mission control which we would later visit.  After the three hour flight we had a quick half hour coach journey to our next hotel the ‘Homewood Suites by Hilton’ which was a really luxurious hotel, with a pool and gym making our stay even nicer.

Day seven was the day we went to the Moody Gardens where we saw all sorts of wild animals and insects which can only seen in that part of the world, I was able to touch a white snake and wild crocodile.  We also went to see another IMAX movie on the life of a shark, another great film.

The next day we went to NASA’s mission control were we saw the modern and old mission control, the old one being where the Apollo moon landing missions were directed from.  Later on in the day I met Dr F Chang Diaz, NASA Astronaut and Scientist.  He and his team are working on the new kind of propulsion engine, a plasma engine.  This was truly fascinating.

Day 9 was our penultimate day, we went to Rice University where we were given a lecture on ‘Space and Solar Science’ by Dr David Alexander where we learnt in detail about solar winds and magnetic fields of both the Sun and the Earth, another real highlight.

On our final day we visited the Johnson Space Centre which was really good but the highlight of the day had to be the barbecue we had at Astronaut Scott Kelly’s house where I met astronauts Michael Foale, Scott Kelly as well as other important NASA personnel including George Abbey a former director of NASA.  All this was very surreal to me and all the others as these people had visited and come back from a place you and I will probably never go, space, an area where so few people have been.

I managed to get some autographs in my space shuttle book from all three, Michael Foale, Scott Kelly and George Abbey.  Michael and Scott also signed my trainers, but Michael did say ‘I hope I’m not going to see these on Ebay!!  So I promised I wouldn’t, which was a shame as that could have been some extra pocket money!

The next day we had the long flight back to England.

This trip to me will be an unforgettable experience for the rest of my life. Even today, I still can’t believe the things I saw and experienced.  I would like to thank Mr Mehmi for all his work and thank ISSET for making such a fantastic trip possible.   

Lawrence Clark