My Space Man

An awesome, cool-enough-to-be-an-astronaut friend of ours recently took Adel on a first class tour of Johnson Space Center.  Adel attends meetings there regularly, but there are still many places that he does not have clearance to go.  Well, on this tour, he went there.  They got to walk on the pool deck of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (the big swimming pool where the astronauts train), and they saw some divers moving underwater equipment around to set up for the next astronaut training.

They saw all the mission control centers as well as the Soyuz Trainer.  Adel's favorite part was the Shuttle Mission Simulator (SMS) which is a motion simulator where Adel got to practice flying lift off, ascent, and a return to launch site abort.  Adel did great on his manual piloting and landing, but he was a little light on the brakes, almost overshooting the runway.

This is a picture my friend sent me of Adel in the Crew Compartment Trainer (CCT1), where astronauts practice the layout and orientation of the shuttle components:

Thanks Mac and Evan, for this amazing experience!