SNOWY SEND OFF: Sunday night, the kids and I gathered 'round the computer to watch NASA TV in high def. On the evening's schedule was the launch of a Expedition 29, a Soyuz TMA-22 rocket headed to the International Space Station.
The scene at the launch pad, the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, was unlike anything we've ever seen before. It was practically a white out, with snow blanketing the ground and swirling all around. And speaking of blanketing, the three space travelers - NASA astronaut Dan Burbank, with cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, had what appeared to be Snuggies over their flight suits on the way to the capsule.
The launch went off on schedule, without incident. We watched the whole 15 or so minutes it took the astronauts reach orbit. It was easy to tell when they'd reached orbit - the Angry Bird stuffed animal that was hanging in their capsule suddenly started floating around. The kids loved that. :)
WINGING IT: The number one item on today's To Do list was visiting The Museum of Flight to pick up
some swag to take to my fellow Tweeps at the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) Tweetup and launch next week. (Eep! NEXT WEEK!)
We would up spending nearly three hours at the museum. How I love, Love, LOVE that place. It's just beautiful and magical and a must see if you're in Seattle.
CJ likes to see the displays in order, so we started in the World War I exhibit. There, we marveled over the amazing old aircraft and the artifacts from the era. The kids love the interactive displays, where they get to turn knobs, press buttons and such.
Next, it was the World War II exhibit.
CJ has been asking lots of questions about Hitler for the past few weeks, so there, he was able to read and see lots about the terrible dictator.
There are many spots throughout the museum where you can sit down and watch a short movie. At the back of the WWII exhibit, a black and white film was playing in a small theater. The part we saw was mainly footage about the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on Japan, and the awful suffering and human toll in Europe at the hands of the Nazis.The film ended saying it was impossible to know how many died in World War II, but that an estimate was 56 million people (elsewhere I've seen estimates nearing 80 million). It's pretty much impossible to wrap your mind around that number.
As we left the small, dark theater and stood amidst the war planes, uniforms and photos of soldiers, I found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. And while I was fighting to keep my composure, all of the sudden CJ just busted out bawling, poor guy.
He kept giving himself a pep talk, saying, "I'm going to be cool," but it didn't work too well, poor guy. A chocolate old fashioned donut from the on site restaurant helped some.
After regrouping, we moved onto the more modern machines, including space age stuff. Here's a model of the little orb that started the space race.
In the space age exhibit, there was a looping video of television from the infancy of the era. The kids enjoyed watching a snippet of "The Banana Splits" and a Quisp commercial.
Christian, CJ and Annabelle all tried their hand at rescuing the Hubble telescope. CJ and Annabelle didn't quite accomplish it, but you'll be happy to know that Christian saved the day, and the telescope.
Today we discovered a corner of the museum we'd somehow missed on previous visits. It's a section that's especially for the younger set.
CJ and Annabelle loved it, of course.
There were lots of hands-on opportunities to learn more about the principles of flight and flying a plane.
We also made our way up to the tower exhibit for the first time. The level has an array of informative displays.
The view for the tower was phenomenal. CJ enjoyed pretending he was an air traffic controller.
Our art lesson of the day came at the legendary Beth's Cafe. Outside, we appreciated the colorful wall mural in their parking lot.
Inside, we marveled over the hundreds of crayon drawings covering every wall in the place.
We also marveled over the vast quantity of food that came on every plate. Yikes.
Museum of Flight looks like a must see, for sure.
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