Space City
Houston received its official nickname of "Space City" in 1967 because it is home to NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
NASA's center in Houston has its origins in legislation shepherded to enactment in 1958 by then-U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, who was from Texas. Then called simply the "Manned Spacecraft Center", it was opened in 1961. It was renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in 1973, the year Johnson died. The control center coordinates and monitors all human spaceflight for the United States and directs all Space Shuttle missions and activities aboard the International Space Station. The visitor's center of JSC is Space Center Houston.
The first words transmitted by Neil Armstrong from the moon, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed", are written in 15 languages on bronze plaques placed along the main entrance of Tranquility Park in downtown Houston. A replica of one of the footprints left on the moon by Neil Armstrong is also on display inside the park.
Read more about this topic: Nicknames Of Houston
Famous quotes containing the words space and/or city:
“Shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honors
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog and bay the moon
Than such a Roman.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly,
musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb,
Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and steamships, an
island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)