On the ground

On November 22nd, 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was fatally shot while his Presidential motorcade traveled through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The X on the street marks the approximate position of Kennedy in the limousine when he was shot. Nearby, the Six Floor Museum details the timeline and facts around the tragic event, as well as the life of the President.

From what is called the “sniper’s nest” located on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, it is believed that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the fatal bullet. The window can be found in the corner of the building and is the only one open.

The 67-foot tall statue of Sam Houston on top a 10-foot granite base was designed and constructed by artist David Adickes.  He dedicated the statue to the City of Huntsville on October 22nd, 1994.

The San Jincto Monument stands 567 feet tall at the Port of Houston.  There is a 220-ton star on top that commemorates the site of the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution.  It took three years to build and was dedicated on April 21st, 1939.

Commissioned in 1914 and active during World War I, the USS Texas also served in World War II. While serving in the final campaigns in the Pacific in early 1945, she was in combat more days than on all of her previous stations.

Inside the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, there are a number of artifacts and pieces of hardware from the Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs.  Here are some of them.

The Saturn V rocket at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas is one of three surviving vehicles built to launch American astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program. It would have been used during the Apollo 18 mission.

The Apollo Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center is one of the stops on the tour.  Designated a national historic landmark, the control room was used to monitor nine Gemini and all of the Apollo flights.  Pneumatic tube canisters were used to send memos throughout NASA.

The Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas is home to mockups that allowed astronauts to train and familiarize themselves with various systems. There are several partial Space Shuttle mockups, a full scale Space Shuttle mockup, International Space Station module mockups, a Russian Soyuz module mockup, and a Canadian robotic arm.

The Lightner Museum in St. Augustine has many items.  Here are some more items from my visit.