Mission control

Expedition 40 flight controllers are seen at work in this overall view of the space station flight control room (FCR-1) during docking of the "Georges Lemaitre" Automated Transfer Vehicle-5 to the International Space Station in Earth orbit.

The restored room is a museum piece, and yet it is alive, as though engineers stepped out briefly but would be right back.

Mission Control panel for a galaxy themed event.

BBC Future is given an exclusive tour of the restoration of Apollo mission control, as Nasa hurries to complete it before the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings.

Now open to the public, stepping inside is like going straight back to July 20, 1969

JSC2012-E-052762 (16 May 2012) --- Overall view of the space station flight control room in the Johnson Space Center's Mission Control Center as flight controllers support rendezvous and docking operations of the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft. The Soyuz, which carried Flight Engineers Gennady Padalka, Joe Acaba and Sergei Revin, docked to the International Space Station's Poisk Mini-Research Module 2 (MRM2) at 12:36 a.m. (EDT) on May 16, 2012. Photo credit: NASA

One thing the new experience does not recapture is the smoke.

My son needed a desk. I decided to do a NASA themed one and researched the NASA's Mission Control Center to design my own console roughly based on theirs.

A Shuttle Mission Control Mock-Up for Kids: A Mission Control Center for children was constructed to manage a pretend launch of the space shuttle. I wanted to play-out the make believe mission with nothing but LED lamps to tell the story; both 7-segment displays and graphic displays with LED …

Nothing makes a study break more fun than a simulated Apollo program courtesy of this DIY Mission Control Desk that has everything from lighted buttons to an iPad display of astronauts in action.