"Houston, we have NO problem!"

Mother, Ed, and I have been house-sitting for one of my scuba diving buddies in Rockledge, a town near Cape Canaveral, Florida. We came the first week of January and plan to return to Virginia in the middle of March - yes, we're "snowbirds" this year.

My brother, Phil, came from Texas for a long weekend. Mother, in her usual curious manner, said, "Let's go to Kennedy Space Center." It turned out to be a fantastic day. We got a wheelchair for Mother, which worked well for all. It was one of those blue-sky-fluffy-cloud days,in the 70's, and they were there the whole day!

We first saw an IMAX 3-D movie - the kind where you wear those funny glasses so you feel like you're in the movie - of walking on the moon. We took a bus tour, which included 3 different stops. We saw two of the modules that were to be added to the space station in the next two launches. Lastly, we went through some of the displays and saw another remarkable IMAX movie about life inside the space station. One of our questions was answered - yes, they do shave, exercise, etc. The guy would shave a bit, then release his razor and it would just hang right there in midair.

It's hard to really perceive how humongus these shuttles are! We saw Europe's $2 billion science lab, Columbus, which was anchored to the space station on February 12.

This is a great animation showing all the segments of the Space Station, the modules and the international partners that have helped create it.
Click here: SPACE STATION MODULES