After five minutes that seem like five hours, the human gyroscope coasts to a halt. My eyeballs settle. I am, I think, back up the right way.

Ok, calls the boffin. Time to go walk on the moon.

Huntsville has near legendary status in Americas space story. Here at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Centre engineers designed and built the rockets for the Apollo programme in the 1960s and 1970s and it is now the place from which the USA manages all the activities of the astronauts on the International Space Station.

It is also home to Space Camp, a unique training centre for aspiring astronauts, both young and old.

The buzz begins on arrival, when visitors are welcomed by a 36-storey Saturn V rocket model that towers over the interstate highway at the entrance. A fully assembled Space Shuttle launch craft sits beside the car park and thats just the start.

The US Space and Rocket Centre Museum is NASAs original visitor centre and still its most impressive, with more than 1,500 articles of space memorabilia.

The whole story of space exploration to date is laid out in a detailed timeline along the two flanks of a Saturn V rocket, which was restored to its former glory after being found rusting on site.

It all started when Dr Wernher von Braun, the German-born creator of the V2 rockets used in the Second World War, was taken to America as part of a top-secret operation in 1950. He was deployed to what was then a tiny Alabama town as director of the newly formed space centre. Here, he put his rocket expertise to more positive use with the Gemini and Saturn rockets that put the first US satellite into orbit and sent the first men to the moon.

It all grew from there, and Huntsville engineers developed power for the space shuttle, designed and built modules for the International Space Station and are now working on Ares I and Ares V, the next generation of spacecraft.

The whole story of the US space programme, from giant rocket thrusters to tiny wind tunnel models, is told through the museums exhibits.

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Space Camp, Alabama: how to be an astronaut