Space Center Houston Guide: NASA, Mission Control and America's Journey to Space

If you only have time for one museum in Houston, make it the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center — one of the only places on Earth where you can walk into NASA's actual astronaut corps hub, the center of International Space Station mission operations, and the room where the words "Houston, we have a problem" were first heard for real.

(The Space Center earned Smithsonian Affiliate status in 2014, for what it's worth, though the mission control history alone justifies the trip.)

Back to, "Houston, we have a problem," from the movie Apollo 13. The actual line, uttered by the Apollo 13 crew after an oxygen tank exploded mid-flight to the Moon, was "Houston, we've had a problem" — Hollywood's past tense became Hollywood's present tense somewhere between mission and movie.

Those were the words uttered by the astronauts on Apollo 13 to communicate to Mission Control at the Houston Space Center that an explosion had occurred mid-flight, en route to the Moon.

Not only is the Houston Space Center the hub of mission operations, the 1,700-acre site displays myriad space artifacts.

Beyond mission control, the 1,700-acre campus puts flown spacecraft within arm's reach — Mercury 9, Gemini 5, Apollo 17 ...

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Flight Simulation

... — and a simulator gives you a rough approximation of what liftoff actually does to a human body.

Artemis Exhibit

The Artemis exhibit was my favorite part of the visit — it covers the program tasked with returning humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo.

Apollo 17 Command Module

Artemis I flew uncrewed in November 2022, testing the hardware over 25 days in space.

Artemis II carried its first crew — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — on a crewed flyby of the Moon in April 2026, the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit in more than fifty years. Artemis III, still to come, is slated to put astronauts back on the lunar surface itself.

Lunar Samples Vault

To get a sense of what that landing will be like, visit the Lunar Samples Vault at the Space Center. There you will find the world's largest collection of moon rocks, collected from the previous Moon landing.

Lunar Rock

The exhibit even features this, one of only eight moon rocks in the world, that you can touch.

Mission Mars

Another compelling exhibit at the Space Center is Mission Mars.

Among other things, the exhibit offers information about Mars, how it compares with Earth, and information on NASA's 6-month journey to the Red Planet.

View of Houston from my Plane Window

Though not as exciting as reaching the Moon or Mars and looking back at Earth, I was able to get a bird's eye view of Houston from the sky on my departing flight and it was lovely.

That's Houston, from mission control to the moon rocks: a city that put humans into space before it ever quite decided what to call itself in the popular imagination. I'd go back for the food alone. I'd go back twice for the chance to stand in front of a piece of the Moon again.