While in Houston, we took a day trip to the Space Center.

In November 2024, my sister bought my mother plane tickets to go to the church she idolizes so much. The entire family was geared up to go to Houston, Texas, and we got our hotel and packed our bags. Surprisingly, from Baltimore, the plane tickets were less than $300, which is not bad if you want to get away. Our hotel was weirdly cheap too!

I wasn’t planning on going originally due to the fact I was supposed to be in India, but that didn’t end up working out at all. I had to book my ticket going home for a different flight, but all in all I felt like this was a pretty worth it trip, even if it ended up raining most of the time.

On our last day in town, my sister surprised us with tickets to the Space Center. She booked the tour that lets you see the historic mission control room, as well as the astronaut training facility.

When we went in November on a Monday, it really was not that crowded at all. It was about an hours’ drive from the hotel in Sugar Land, but the poor part about all of this was that it was raining. The tram tours they gave us ponchos, and it unfortunately was a downpour.

Here’s how our day went! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

The beginning of the Space Center is a museum, and there’s plenty to see.

As soon as you get inside the Space Center, there’s a bunch of different pathways you could split off to. We stopped in the gift shop to the left first, after getting our tickets for Astronaut Training, and I picked up a space pin to remember my time in Houston. I collect pins wherever I go, as they’re small for my backpacking lifestyle.

We then wandered around reading the plaques and seeing the historical items. My favorite was about the first Japanese tea ceremony in space, as well as the guy who made gum gift bags to celebrate the birth of his daughter while he was in space. It was also pretty neat seeing the space suits of the guys who first went to the moon.

There’s honestly a lot to see if you’re into space. We aren’t as much, so we skipped some things. There’s a theatre on the rightmost side of the building that has a screening, there are more back sections, but we stopped by the first half of the museum and saw what they had in display.

Our first ticket, for the historic mission control, was at 11:25 (the place opened at 10 and that’s when we got there), so we then got in line. They handed us ponchos for the rain while we were waiting in line.

The Mission Control and Astronaut Training were pretty cool.

Our first tour at 11:25 was Mission Control. They took us on a tram to the building where it lives in, and then they told us we had to leave all of our belongings on the chairs in the lobby. We did that, then took the steps up several flights, ending up where they have the historic room.

We then filed in and took whatever available seat was there at the time. A guide at the first section of the museum told us the American flag in the corner of the room was actually on the moon, so we looked for that as people got settled.

They then played us a 14 minute video about how it was like while the team was landing on the moon. I was looking back and forth between the television and the historic room, which the screens were showing what they would have actually seen while it was happening.

After that, they took us down to the tram and back to the main museum. This was an hour total, and we got on the next tram for the astronaut training, which we had 12:30 tickets for.

Honestly, I wasn’t too impressed with this tour. They took us to the facility, where we could look out into the people working on the space training at the time, but it felt like it was less than thirty minutes. My entire family was just talking about how it felt so rushed and quick, and there wasn’t much to see.

The park is full of historic space parts—including the ship that went to the moon.

The final section of the Space Center we went to was Rocket Park. It’s a short tram ride away from the main museum, and it houses one of the rockets that originally went to the moon. We read the plaques all around this area, and gawked at how massive this rocket was. It was huge y’all.

Directly outside there are some other rockets and engines to see. This area is kind of small too, but pretty nice. We got back on the tram right before it started raining again, and they dropped us off in another area where you could go on a plane and the rocket area directly attached to it.

We took the elevator up instead of the stairs. This part was interesting to me, as it was an early model of a plane. You could see how there were nice, plush chairs even for a cargo plane. Flights used to be so different, albeit unaffordable for the average person.

Lunch at Kasra Persian Cafe was the perfect ending.

By the time we were done Rocket Park, we were starving. I had done my research and found out an Iranian restaurant was four minutes down the road, so we went to Kasra Persian Cafe as the rain started to pick up again. We’re used to East Coast prices for Iranian food, and this place was insanely cheap.

I ordered the soltani kabob, which is one steak tenderloin and one ground beef. I’ve eaten a lot of Iranian food in my life, but this is genuinely some of the best kabobs I’ve ever had. It melted right in your mouth and tasted like it was made with love. For $23, this was such a steal. Back home it’s over $40!

The rest of my family also loved their food. My dad chatted with the manager in Farsi before we left, and then we all discussed how good that food was. The bread was a pita bread instead of sangak or lavash, but it was still good considering how hungry we were.

All in all, this felt like a one and done kind of deal. I don’t think I’ll come back to the Space Center, but it was nice to visit at least once.

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