Just call me Dory

OK, folks, I have to confess. My boss has given me a new nickname...you got it, I'm now Dory from the Disney movie "Finding Nemo".

I don't know where my brain has gone lately, but I have lost everything under the sun including........


wait for it......



my blog.


Well, I found it back today, so I can now let you know of the best trip I've had since I have been traveling. We had a corporate and client occasion in Houston, Tx. Since one of our clients is NASA in Houston (we also have a client at the NASA location in Fl), a tour was arranged after the weeks work was completed.

I met an interesting character.


We learned alot in the atmospheric chamber. This is where they can take you up to high altitudes, teach you how it feels, and learn ways of dealing with oxygen deprivation.



If you can see the glove hanging in the background, that has about a pint of air in it. This is what is usually found in an average stomach. When raised to a high altitude, that glove will be larger than a basketball. You can imagine how your digestive track would feel at that point. We hear that the two exit points to the digestive track are greatly used during testing.

No, we didn't go to altitude, but we learned alot.

We had a guided tour at NBL - Neutral buoyancy Lab.

This is a picture of that pool. It is very deep. The item you see across the center is a mock-up of the international space station. It does not all fit in, so if you see any movement in the picture, that is people setting up the pool for the next day. The astronauts were done by the time we showed up.

The yellow cranes are to lower the astronaut (in all his gear) into the water. They add weights to the suit so that he/she is neutral in the water. This is as close as they can get on earth to the feel of working in space weightlessness.

The astronauts have to spend 6 hours working in the pool for every hour of EVA (extra vehicular activity) during a mission. There were all sorts of cool mementoes. The movies "Armagedon" and "Space Cowboys" shot here.

In corners of the pool there are mock-ups of the shuttle doors they jam to train in un-jamming doors. The Hubble telescope was in the pool at one point, but it stuck up almost to the ceiling.

After the guided tour we walked all over the campus. We were accompanied by someone, but I was surprised by all we could see. We went into a large building where they have mock-ups of all different things. The whole international space station is there, mock-ups of the proposed new vehicle, and several mars and lunar rovers.

They also have mock-ups of parts and pieces of the shuttle. Things like the living quarters, which include escape hatches where they practice rapelling.

We saw the old control room...as in "Houston, we have a problem" control room. It was in use until 1993. The new room was locked, so we couldn't see it, but we had permission.

The coolest was where the lab was. The lab has been in the same location for 40 years. The whole building was created to house and test moon rocks. All the astronauts that were exposed to the moon spent at least two weeks there in isolation after returning. If you are old enough to remember the lunar splashdown you would remember they were put right into an Airstream. That Airstream was brought right into the building, and an airlock was attached.

We got to see where the astronauts gave press releases, had physicals, and we were in the room where the moon rocks were first un-packed after being packed into containers on the moon.

The building is still chock full of scientists and testing, including all the food that is sent to space.

We saw a registered national archive. Their "antique" server has all astronaut testing information since the 1940's. Within the next several weeks, all this information will be imported into one of our databases, as the old server is on its last legs, and you can't buy anything that out of date.

It felt like my little brush with fame.

This was by far my favorite trip. It surpasses being behind the scenes at NASA, Florida, but that one has only been pushed down to number 2.

Now that I found my Blog again, it won't be so long til I post again.