Rogersville, AL – October 20, 2008

Yesterday, we spent most of the day at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. Huntsville had once been a small and quiet county seat town and has become a busy and thriving city. It is Alabama’s third largest city and aerospace is the reason for its growth.

It all started with Dr. Wernher von Braun who led a team of German scientists in developing Germany’s famous V-2 rocket. Hitler used the rocket to bomb London during the latter days of WWII. When von Braun realized the war was ending and that Russians would soon occupy their test site, he and he team bluffed their way through German checkpoints and surrendered to American forces. In late 1945, more than 100 members of the von Braun team agreed to come to the United States to work under U.S. Army supervision. They were originally assigned to Ft. Bliss, Texas, site of the Army’s expanding rocket program.

In 1950 the Army moved the team to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. Here, von Braun and his team were responsible for the creation of the Saturn V rocket. This was the vehicle used for orbital space flights and the Apollo missions. Following this were the successes of Skylab and the shuttle programs that continue today.

The Space & Rocket Center is the world’s largest space museum and has the Nation’s largest and finest collection of NASA rockets and army missiles.

There are dozens of hands-on exhibits, flight simulations, an IMAX theater and an extensive outdoor exhibit. There are military rockets, the 354-foot Saturn V moon rocket, a 98-ton full size model of the Space Shuttle, a U.S. Air Force SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, and many artifacts from the Mercury and Apollo space missions. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

This afternoon is the start of the Fall Loopers Rendezvous event. We have already re-connected with several people we met earlier in our trip.