Rumbles From The Vent: THAT'S ONE SMALL STEP

Saturdays visit to the Davidson Center For Space Exploration in Huntsville Alabama was very cool.
I have had a fascination with the Saturn V (five) rocket since Neil Armstrong made that first footprint in the moon dust. I was 14 and I just knew that in 10 or 20 years we would have people living up there on the moon.

The Davidson Space Museum is only about 2 years old, I have seen the Saturn V before but never displayed in such a way. In front of the building there is one standing up, all 363 feet. In the building it is displayed on it's side suspended about 20 feet overhead. It is segmented in an exploded view. I couldn't stop looking at this amazing antiquated technology.

My two level cervical spinal fusion did not serve me well as I strained looking up to take in every detail of the five first stage rocket motors. Then walking down to look at the second stage to see the smaller versions of five rocket motors then farther down to the third stage single engine then to the instrument ring then the service module and command module.
This was no mock up of a rocket, this was the real thing.
My cousins company built most of the instructional displays for the museum
as well at the mockup of the Orion module.

Shaver and Sharon and a guy who used to help light the "candles" and the Orion

There were volunteers walking around willing to talk to you about the displays and the Saturn V, they were retired engineers who used to work there and they would talk about the space program and what they did there as long as you wanted to stand there and listen. My cousin had long conversations with these guys, his father worked there for many years and it was interesting listening to them trading stories back and forth.
I'm sure his dad would be very proud to know that his son had built most of the displays for this place. My cousin Jim (Shaver as we have always called him) was our own personal tour guide and gave us a lot of interesting background on the displays and the history of the space center. I could have stayed there several more hours, I have always been an aircraft and spacecraft nut. It's a shame that NASA seems to have been co-opted by environmentalists political hacks.

At the far end of the building they had a moon rock on display and the actual Apollo 16 capsule.

The purpose of our trip to Huntsville was to see family, but this was a nice bonus getting to see a real Saturn V up close and personal.

Mom and Aunt Nancy

Many thanks to Aunt Nancy, Shaver, Sharon and Ethan for being such wonderful hosts. You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family. Sometimes if you’re lucky, you get to have the best of both worlds, family and friends all in one.