NASA in Austin

NASA was in Austin today, offering free exhibits for home educators. The event was free, but limited to those who made reservations months earlier. We attended this morning and received a nice bag full of pencils, a NASA calendar, stickers, bookmarks, and lots of educational brochures.

We found the astronaut food interesting. Similar to military MRE's.

Included in our complimentary bag were several packets of Cinnamon Basil seeds. These seeds were flown to space on mission STS-118 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, which launched Aug 8, 2007, and returned to earth on August 21, 2007.

Pamela has extra packets of unopened seeds and would be happy to mail some to her cousins if they're interested. She'll be planting hers, this Sunday.


On exhibit for touching, was 1 of the 8 rocks taken from the moon.
We got a little side tracked on the scenery while touring the outdoor NASA booths.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the planetarium, due to the high winds. STILL, it was worth the visit. We learned a LOT about air pressure at the science booths.

Did you all catch the LIVE Kepler spacecraft launch tonight? We actually caught it by accident while flipping channels. To this day, I still hold my breath whenever I see live launches.

I'll never forget the Space Shuttle Columbia blowing up over Texas 6 years ago. The kids and I were visiting my cousin in Tyler. We were just waking up when we felt the rumble.