I Learned to Like Science Again at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos at all.  Their desire to go to space isn’t based on the old noble principles of a generation ago.  It is just another excuse to post on social media and an avenue to make more money (because they don’t have enough, you know). Their marketing teams will spin it and spin it some more to try and make their projects sound like there is an altruistic aspect there, but there isn’t.  Not in my humble opinion. 

I have never been particularly interested in space travel.  It doesn’t fascinate me like it does some people.  Therefore, I don’t know why I decided to watch the new Netflix series, “Away” with Hillary Swank starring as an astronaut.  But I did watch, and I loved it.  Hearing those (albeit fictional) astronauts talk about their love of research and learning and the thrill of being “the first” was infectious.  Their cravings to find connections from one end of the universe to the other seemed honorable. When I watch old interviews from the 1950’s and 60’s of the space race, that love of learning, that desire to discover and know was there.  

Why am I rambling on about this?  Because I found my child-like sense of wonder about space again by visiting the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. We stayed at the Huntsville Marriott at the Space and Rocket Center and walked next door to the Space Center.

Of course, there are photographs, documents and artifacts from the 1950’s and 60’s.  There are also capsules and rockets on display, just as one would expect.  I can say from experience that even the most jaded person will get excited when they stand under the Saturn V rocket. It is thrilling, even when you walk in the door doubting that it will be.

Our basic $25 tickets covered access to the space museum’s permanent and rotating exhibits.  We spent four hours there and didn’t see it all.  So, if you go, plan accordingly.  We chose to spend an extra $10 per person to see a planetarium show.  We hadn’t seen one in years and remembered loving them.  We were right.  It was definitely worth the $10 to sit in the dark, hear the narrator explain our solar system (as we understand it today) and to watch beautiful lights sweep across “the sky.”  There were audible “oohs” and “ahhs” from the audience and I admit to participating once or twice.

One of the temporary exhibits surprised me by becoming one of my favorite galleries of the day. It was entitled, “Drones: Is the Sky the Limit?”  The gallery was filled with samples, videos, and information on all the sectors of our lives where drones are being used. It was a broader array than I expected to see. If I was competing in a trivia night and was asked to name fields where drone technology is currently being applied, I would guess the military and maybe consumer goods package delivery. That’s about it. By the way, current air traffic control systems are not set up to handle huge numbers of drones whizzing through our skies. Therefore, delivery companies using drones to deliver consumer goods on a large scale is still impossible. America would have to change its air traffic control infrastructure in order for that to become a reality.

Would you have guessed that drones are used in: agriculture, medicine, construction, the arts, personal transport and even the Fire Department of New York City?

For the record, my favorite case study was a company called Zipline. They are running a pilot program in Rwanda right now. In Rwanda’s most rugged areas it can take days to reach specific locations by car or plane. The Zipline program allows medical professionals to order urgent and critical medical supplies (for example, blood) via text message. A drone is loaded and flown autonomously at 62 miles per hour to the location. The medical supplies are dropped via parachute and retrieved by medical personnel on the ground. In many cases, these deliveries will now only take a few hours. This program resonated with me. Remember that desire to do something honorable that I mentioned at the start of this post? There it is.

My husband and I checked out various types of space suits, lunar capsules, and a mobile quarantine facility (i.e. Airstream camper) that had been prepared for the return of America’s astronauts. After all, in the 1960’s, accessing space was still new. No one knew if the crew would bring back some kind of “space germs” or not. NASA prepared a special Airstream for them where they would quarantine for weeks upon their return while undergoing tests. Several missions had these mobile quarantine facilities provided for them. The one on display in Huntsville was for the Apollo 12 mission.

Perhaps there are people that would say I am overstating it, but I do believe there was something pure in the astronauts’ motives back in the 60’s. Stretching our minds to their limits for the sake of simple knowledge seems admirable. At least it starts out that way and all we can hope is that our wonder and awe don’t get corrupted along the way. If nothing else, visiting the U.S. Space and Rocket Center did revive that sense of wonder in me and it revived my appreciation for the people who dedicated their entire lives to the mental ingenuity and the physical training necessary to travel among the stars.