Craig, Gabe, and Randall go weightless....

Thursday, June 23, Craig, Gabe, Nujoud, and Randall participated in the world's fastest weight-loss program (They flew on the Vomit Comet). :) They had many stories to tell about their amazing experience and were giving Phoebe, Jackie, and Wesley pointers on how not to eat it like Craig did (we have the video to prove it). None of the boys got sick! :)

The boys coming off the plane :)

While the boys and Nujoud were observing our experiment and enjoying the sensation of microgravity, Wesley, Phoebe, Josh, and Jackie were having fun making friends and playing with the scraps of our insulation (known to the rest of the world as pool noodles :).  Jackie, Phoebe, and Wesley also got their flight suits. :)

Phoebe having fun...

Melissa, Jared, Josh, Jackie, Phoebe, and Wesley...
(Fernando bombed the photo :)

After the flight, we got to tour the NASA facilities here in Houston!! Our first stop was Building 9, the Vehicle Mock-up Facility. We got to see the life-sized mockups of the international space station and the space shuttle. The astronauts train on these to know everything to do on the inside, so they will be prepared for the real thing.

Next, we went to the Sonny Carter Training Facility - Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (Jackie likes to call it the huge swimming pool). The pool is 202 ft long, 102 ft wide, and 40 ft deep, and it holds 6.2 million gallons of water!!! The astronauts, who are accompanied by at least 4 divers at all times, train on the outside of the international space station mock ups inside the "pool". The neutrally buoyant condition simulates reduced gravity sufficiently for the astronauts to practice future on-orbit procedures and to work through simulation exercises to solve problems encountered on-orbit. Since the first building we toured is for training on the inside and the Neutral Buoyancy Lab is for training on the outside, we got to see a variety of the training astronauts have to go through. (and there is still more that we didn't get to see.)

There was a bit of glare... But you can still see the relative size! It was huge!

After touring the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, we went to the Mission Control Center!!!! This division of the Johnson Space Center directs all space shuttle missions, including international space station assembly flights. The Mission Control Center also manages all activity on board the international space station. We got to see both the Space Shuttle Flight Control Room and the International Space Station Flight Control Room before we went to the Apollo Mission Control Room. Since this room is no longer in use, we were able to actually go inside and sit in the chairs. :)

Space Shuttle Flight Control Room

After visiting Mission Control, our tour was done, so we went back to the hotel, walked to Cheddar's for dinner, and relaxed for the rest of the evening before going to bed early. :)

Our team :)