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:
“Oh, my. I’d forgotten how much I hate space travel.”
—George Lucas (b. 1944)
“A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)