BIG CITY GETAWAY

daytrip ideas to get out of the daily grind

Space… the nal frontier.

How we all know these words. But Star Trek is a future that might yet be written.

Our real space history is very much a reality and the single greatest place to experience this is outside of Huntsville, Alabama at the US. Space and Rocket Center.

We visited there this past April.

What started as a quick photo stop ended up with us burning the rest of the day in this magni cent museum.

If you are like us then Space Program was the greatest “real” show we have ever seen.

This is the place to be,

Located alongside Interstate 565, right outside downtown Huntsville, this is a hard place to miss.

Like the tiny town of Warren, New Hampshire… rockets tend to garner attention. The Redstone, basically a nuclear missile, is a full 83 and a half feet tall.

As we rode up to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center it was hard to miss the Saturn V. At nearly 365 feet tall it tends to grab your attention. Whoa.

The Saturn V was launched 13 times from Kennedy Space Center with no loss of crew or payload. As of 2021, the Saturn V remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status, and holds records for the heaviest payload launched and largest payload capacity to low Earth orbit of 310,000 lbs, which included the third stage and unburned propellant needed to send our guys to the Moon.

You got that Alice….? Bang, zoom!

But, as much as I am into big rockets, there are other aircraft and technology that the United States has brought forth, although this rst aircraft that came rolling by was not a rocket.

Staring at the Saturn V, as it dominated the vista as we rode up, I heard Shira say… “Well, aren’t you the lucky boy?” She knows where I am at.

Three decades will do that.

I glanced to my left and… there sat a Blackbird. And, not McCartney’s Blackbird by the way.

The SR-71 was also the fastest and highest- ying air-breathing, piloted aircraft ever built, ying at 90,000 feet (20,000 feet above the U-2) and at more than 2,100 mph—literally faster than a speeding bullet, as in Los Angeles to DC in 64 minutes.

We have been looking for one on eBay, but no luck so far.

But this is called the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, as it is the largest collection of rocketry and space exploration on the planet.

We had thought we’d drop by for a few quick images but, before we knew it, ve hours had passed. I even became Astro-certi ed – kinda – with my ride on the multi-axis trainer. I was strapped and suspended into this contraption made of three tumbling rings. I was simultaneously rotated, somersaulted and rolled through said rings. Did I mention I did this right after

BACKROADS • NOVEMBER 2021 Page 19 we ate lunch? Shira stood by, warning those watching to be aware of that fact – to perhaps not stand directly in front of the spinning person.

The rst thing to know, at any great museum or place along this line, is that the staff makes or breaks it. We had a docent who went beyond his job to draw us into the entire U.S. Space program. Just seeing something and then really hearing about it makes a difference.

My hat is off to all those who are docents… Yes, Steve Sacher, I mean you! You bring life to history. You take a simple display and reach into our souls. You make a bit of history into a real feeling… of skin and bone. You keep our history alive. May the gods bless you. I am in awe of you all, as I was of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.

What was impressive outside could not hold a candle to what was to be seen inside.

A Saturn V was taken apart so you could see all of the three stages. Apollo Capsules, Lunar Excursion Modules (LEM), and a deep look into our space history. You can even train like an astronaut and experience three times the force of gravity as you test your will in the G-Force Accelerator.

The museum was rst proposed by Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun. For those of you who do not know the name…. he was a German-born American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was the leading gure in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany and a pioneer of rocket and space technology in the United States.

Our thought is that he was one of us. He was not a Nazi. He was a rocket-head. Not too different from a motorhead.

How fast can we go? How far can we go? Space…. The nal frontier.

No different from Homer Hickam in West Virginia. Von Braun also, evidently, was a very funny man.

This museum is amazing in every way.

And, we hope you follow in our wake and have to be part of your rocketry history.

It’s time to blast off! Everything is nominal. ,