We left Mission Control Center and headed over to the JSC building that holds all the mock-ups that the astronauts use to train.






On the wall, there was a tribute to the three missions where astronauts lost their lives: Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia.











This is another HUGE building with several mock-ups of the International Space Center, Orion, the Soyuz, and many different portions of the shuttle.

















Banners above one of the shuttle mock-ups name each of the five space shuttles. Sadly, only three remain at the end of the program.

Astronaut Scott Kelly took the time to autograph a picture for us.





















As you can see, there's not a lot of room in the capsule.









The Soyuz will now be the only way to get NASA astronauts to and from the space station. It launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It's a 48 hour trip up to the station where, as Scott Kelly told us, there's not much for a NASA astronaut to do but sit there and wait. He said half jokingly that, "you drift in and out of consciousness - kind of like a cat."



The ride back home is a lot faster - you're back on the ground in Kazakhstan about 3.5 hours after you leave the space station.




















Here's Ron Franco with astronaut Scott Kelly in the ISS mock-up. Scott came back from the ISS in March. His brother is Mark Kelly and they are identical twins. They are the only twins and only siblings to ever fly in space.




















Scott Kelly showed us around the ISS. He was pointing out the differences and then stopped and said, "this is the first time I've been back in here since I came back from the real thing."






He took A LOT of time showing us around and talking with us. In fact, after the day ended he met us out for drinks at a local wine bar.





























The capsule we are in front of is called the Orion.

After the tour ended, we went to a local wine bar/restaurant with many of the tweeps from our tour. One of the trainers, a flight director, and Scott Kelly also came by to talk.

At the end of the night, we ended up talking with Chris Hadfield. Chris was the first Canadian to walk in space and will be the first Canadian Commander of the ISS during Expedition 35 which will launch in December 2012.







People have asked us if it was a bittersweet experience. It was definitely “sweet” because we are both strong supporters of the US space program, have witnessed three launches from KSC, and were fortunate to be able to be a part of this very special JSC NASA Tweetup before the shuttle program ended. However, it was mostly bitter. It was bitter because some of the trainers and other employees who were so kind to us are being laid off next month. It was bitter because we were some of the last people to ever use the motion-based Shuttle SIM, they started to dismantle it on July 21, the day Atlantis landed. Finally, it’s bitter, not because the shuttle program is ending, but because our country has no plans for what comes next. When Apollo ended, the shuttle was in the pipeline. The shuttle program has now ended, and what is next for the US manned space program is up in the air.

We do want to thank the NASA PAOs (Public Affairs Officers), Flight Directors, Trainers, and Astronauts that made our trip such a fantastic experience. We met a lot of great people and got to know many great "tweeps" from this country and others.