Take a space break

Houston is not the prettiest city in the US, says Alex Hannaford in the Independent, but it does have one "saving grace": the Space Centre – Nasa's base for a range of space projects, such as the International Space Station, the Shuttle, the Lunar Orbiter and the Hubble telescope.

On a tour, you can see "teams of boffins" testing spacecraft, inspect rockets up close, and learn about astronaut cuisine. There are also memorials to the Challenger and

Columbia disasters, with a "surprisingly touching eulogy" by George W Bush playing over loudspeakers.

For anyone fascinated by space, this is a good time to visit: Nasa plans to return humans to the moon by 2020, then on to Mars. "There hasn't been this much interest in space since the Shuttle began in the early 1980s."

The Space Centre, 001 281 244 2100. Open 10am-5pm daily.