We’re here at Carnarvon WA for a couple of days to have the Landcruiser 80K service done. 

And, to have a look at the space museum. Carnarvon played a significant role in the Apollo program communications back in the day when men first set foot on the moon. 

It’s also the site of a very large OTC dish.

Evidently the OTC Satellite Earth Station at Carnarvon was established to meet the need for more reliable and higher quality communications for NASA’s Apollo Moon project. An iPhone probably does a much better job these days.

I didn’t have any trouble working out which of these two was the biggest dish…

The space museum was interesting. From a technology point of view the gear used way back in the 1960s to get those guys to the moon & back was pretty rugged & basic.

A lot of the hands-on exhibits were not working the best. We fear a few too many rough kiddie space cadets have been more than a match for some of the demo equipment.

Having said that, I did manage to crash & burn the space shuttle simulator. Jayne didn’t land or crash but got a cheaky comment from the console to suggest she’d used the space shuttle “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” An old Star Trek reference.

I think shejust set the controls for the heart of the sun.

The “Apollo launch simulation experience” was fairly tame by today’s video game standards but it gave some idea of the confined space in the early Apollo capsules.

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Right now we’re back down on the ground and freecamping in an overnight rest stop before making our way to Geraldton tomorrow.  

We see some interesting rigs in our travels. This one is a houseboat on a trailer that doubles as a caravan. 

It’s been raining a bit today. We haven’t seen rain for a long time. Maybe the houseboat bloke knows more about the weather than we do.

17 Aug This entry was published on 17/08/2016 at 7:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.