msfc

[meg]

so today, i took a 'tour' of redstone. it was soooo incredibly cool! i saw all of marshall, the place where von braun test fired rockets, where his office was. i saw a nasa plane flying into the airport. i saw all these defense places and where they shoot off stuff! it was awesome!

one of the coolest things...i saw the payload opps building! (for the iss) i was like DUDE!!! its cool, cause i know people who train/work there!!

i know before 9/11 camps took field trips there. i never got to go since i was there after then, but what did you guys all see (for those who went). my biggest question, was did you just drive by, or did you stop in. and if you stopped in, what all did you get to see and in which buildings?

[spacemusician]

i remember that we saw the iss mock up thingy thats now at usrc. we also saw the clean room from the upstairs observation room, thats where they had iss parts waiting to go up. i think a hatch or something. i remember really enojoying goign over there. i think i aso have vague memories of a engine test pad but i might be imagining that.

[ApolloXI]

I hope that the special session camp goes.

[Maverick Shades]

yeah...we definately saw a few rocket test pads
and of course the iss white room
there was a small rocket park over there
that's about it
I think you saw more than the camp tour, meg

[CastAway]

...they stopped it because of 9/11? I thought they stopped it because, well... they thought ASA kids wouldn't like it. I thought it was cool the first time, but I wasn't a huge fan after that. But it sounds like that's just me.

[Boomerang]

Just so you guys know. The So called ISS Mockup modules at MSFC or atleast the ones that use to be ther befroe being moved to camp. Were not really ISS mockups they were built to represent Space Station Freedon as evidenced by their layout when they were at Marshall. Believe me i saw them back in 91 and 93 when they were calling them Freedon then again in 98 when they called them ISS they were the same modules all those years.

[spacecampaddict28]

I remember seeing where they were building the ISS and I saw rockets and test pads at marshall...but I was really little, like camp little so I cant remember much more than that...I remember seeing them building like a science module for the ISS though

oh and yes the reason we dont visit anymore is because of 9/11

[CastAway]

That's... the most BS reason I've ever heard... terrorists crashed a plane into a building, so we can't go on a bus tour?

Hmm... I remember seeing some Von Braun rocket test site thingy with a rocket sitting in it (dunno if real or fake). I also remember driving a lot, seeing some ISS part being built, and yes, the mockup.

[Boomerang]

Actually its not that much S and its NASA Langley visitor center for 11 years first as a volunteer now as a paid employee. we use to offer bus tours of Langley but like MSFC we had to stop ours after 9/11 also. securtiy on government facilities is extremely tight. Heck NASA Langley has tighter security than the Air Force Base next door to it. However there is talk of restarting the LAngley tours again so hopefully they can be restarted here and at MSFC.

As for what we use to see for me it depended on thye year. The first 2 years i went we saw the space station mockuops then called freedom. As well as many of the test stands including the old redstone test stand and the test stand they tested the Saturn V engines and shuttle engines on. Also drove by the small rocket park and the vibratiobn test facility. One other thing that hasnt been done in many years we use to stop at MSFC's Neutral Buoyancy training facility that is now closed. 96 i was at AC and we didnt visit MSFC. In 98 the stops were about the same as the first 2 years except we didnt go to see the space station mockups we went and swas where they were building the real pieces and since the neutral buoyancy training facility was closed down prior to then we didnt visit that either.

[SpaceCanada]

My recollection of MSFC is similar to that of what everyone else has said. We jumped on a bus, drove there, saw some rocket test facilities, some bunker-like buildings from where the scientists watched the engine tests, and a bunch more truss-like structures. We stopped in at Marshall where we went through a few rooms, saw the ISS clean room from above, and walked down another hallway (behind glass) alongside another area where they were constructing the trusses and solar panels for the ISS. After that we went to MSFC's version of Rocket Park. It's VERY small compared to USSRC's collection. Then, of course, we went for the 'historic' picnic!

For both the years I was at camp we visited MSFC. I cannot see how anyone could possibly get bored going there, but maybe that's just me.

As for the ISS mock-up modules, some of them may be old, but some of them were actually used by astronauts. A friend of mine who went to camp the week after my first time (we were supposed to go together, but our week got cancelled) actually saw astronauts in the modules blocked off with plexi-glass and yellow tape. (At least the modules were blocked off when I went.) I do not know exactly what they were doing, because I wasn't the one who saw them, but he had mentioned something about the entire crew of a particular mission being there. It could have been just an interactive tour of the facility, but either way, it's interesting. (To me)

[monkeynautt]

When I went in 2001 we saw the ISS mission control room.

[CastAway]

Oh yeah... good point about the old neutral buyancy thingy. I definitely saw that one of the years... I totally forgot that!