Huntsville-Rocket City With The Space Museum

Space Shuttle Model at Huntsville

We had planned to visit the Space Museum in Huntsville the Rocket city and accordingly left Memphis  at 9 AM using the Garmin Road Navigator and after driving on narrow deserted roads for 2 hours came to a wall built across the road and it was not possible to drive further. We were stuck and Garmin was of no help either. We asked an amused  bystander about how to go through the wall he said it had been built 3 months back and was probably not known to our Garmin. We checked the settings on the Garmin and it was set to"Avoid Highways". The settings corrected to use only highways, we were soon speeding along the US72 and after sometime we could see the tall rockets which have given the sobriquet  Rocketcity to Huntsville.  

Rocket City, Huntsville

There were many kinds of rockets standing around the space museum ,from the smallest to the really large Saturn Rockets which had taken man to the moon.

SR-71  Huntsville

Also standing outside the Space Museum was a SR 71 which has been acknowledged to be the fastest plane which man has flown using conventional fuel(non rocket).  It was I have heard used as a spy plane during various wars in the Middle East and its inputs changed the course of many a battle and war.

Inside Rocket Engine

This is a view of the inside of the rocket  engine where the rocket fuel actually burns.

SaturnV Rocket

When we  entered the Space Museum we found a massive rocket lying horizontally. The guide informed us that originally 20 missions were planned for the Apollo space program and accordingly 20 Rockets were built. 

SaturnV Rocket,Huntsville

But the missions did not proceed beyond Apollo 17 and therefore 3 were left and one of them was mounted here. I asked the guide as to what happened to the Lunar Module of Apollo 13 which was hit by meteorites,lost its main oxygen supply,  and came back without landing on the moon. She politely told me that she would find out and come back to me shortly. 

Below the Saturn V ,Huntsville

We explored the Apollo vehicle's every nook and cranny for about and hour when the guide came back to tell me that although Apollo 13 did not land on the moon its lunar module was left to crash on the moon and the Astronauts has survived using the oxygen supply of the lunar module.

Thanking her profusely we proceeded to get ourselves photographed with  and Astronaut.

Astronaut, Huntsville

As we were leaving a young guide with a number of weighing scales asked us if we would like to know how much we would weigh on different planets. My nephew was weighed on earth as 24 Kg. We were asked to guess his weight on the moon.  I said 4kg and was correct.On Mars is said 9Kg and was correct. On Jupiter 7600 Kg. Both the young fellows were puzzled. The guide asked me if I had really been to all the those places and the nephew asked me if he could really  become as strong to weigh 7600 Kg.

Map of The Moon,Huntsville

Any visit to a space museum is a thrilling experience and so was the visit to the Rocket City Space Museum.

Space and Rocket Center, Huntsville

Among the places to travel,US is a top destination and Rocketcity is an excellent tourist place for technology, knowledge and understanding of space travel. Without a personal visit one cannot imagine the scale and the size.