Houston we have problems. “Houston, we have problems”: where does the phrase come from? From what movie? Where it came from: "Houston, we have problems"
Traveling to other planets has long excited people's minds. Films about the adventures of astronauts began to be made back in the 20th century, although the technology of that time did not yet allow, as it does today, to show a colorful and reliable picture of another world. But the beginning of space exploration fueled interest in science fiction and gave directors a powerful incentive to develop this theme in their works. The film "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" was created back in 1964. It talks about the flight of two astronauts to Mars. During an unsuccessful landing, one of the explorers of the Red Planet dies, and Commander Chris Draper remains in the desert world only in the company of a small monkey who flew with them. But man does not despair and begins his struggle for survival. It was in this film that the phrase “Houston, we have problems” that later became widely known was first heard.
"Lost"
In 1969, another one about space flights, “Lost,” was published. It talks about American astronauts, which after the end of the mission resulted from an accident in orbit with a limited supply of oxygen. While people in space were trying to survive, NASA was hastily developing techniques to save them. As a result, with the involvement of the USSR spacecraft, two astronauts are saved. "Lost" also featured "Houston, we have a problem!"
Apollo 13
However, the appeal to Houston became truly famous after the astronauts of the manned spacecraft Apollo 13 returned to Earth. Due to the explosion of an oxygen tank and a series of subsequent breakdowns, the astronauts were stuck on the ship with a limited supply of oxygen and drinking water. NASA did not have a clear plan for their rescue, and all emerging emergency situations were resolved by the space agency’s specialists in real time. The phrase “Houston, we have a problem” was uttered by one of the crew members, reporting to Earth about the breakdown. The Apollo 13 flight took place a few months after the release of Lost, so perhaps the astronaut was repeating what his “colleague” had said in a similar situation. The Apollo 13 mission, which almost ended in disaster, served as the basis for a film of the same name, telling about the courage of the astronauts, the professionalism and dedication of NASA employees. Phrase-
Modern culture permeated with references to certain works. Some particularly popular phrases can appear in dozens of different films, songs and literary works. Over time, it becomes too difficult to understand where exactly the original phrase was, and where is just a quote and another reference? An example of this would be: “Houston, we have problems” - from which only a few people can answer the phrase correctly.
Phrase: "Houston, we have problems"
Most will say that the saying was originally belongs to Bruce Willis, from the epic science fiction film " Armageddon»:
- A huge asteroid is flying towards the Earth.
- Scientists calculated that it would collide with the planet and inevitably destroy all life.
- A squad of astronauts and drillers ventured on a suicidal rescue mission.
- Once on the asteroid itself, main character encounters an unexpected problem, which he informs others about with a legendary phrase.
- Any further statements will reveal the film's denouement to those who have not yet seen it.
But what does Houston have to do with it and who is he anyway? Oddly enough, this is not a person or even a group of people, but town name, which houses NASA's mission control center. Therefore, by turning to the air in this way, the astronaut immediately communicates information to all observers who can help him with advice from Earth.
First disaster during a mission to the moon
But as you might guess, the first astronaut in US history was not Bruce Willis. The most serious space program of this country was associated with the exploration of the Moon.
If the Union preferred to explore orbit and distant planets with the help of unmanned vehicles, then the Americans came up with the idea of sending a person to the satellite of our planet.
The idea is ambitious and controversial; millions of people still adhere to the conspiracy theory that the American government filmed the entire landing somewhere in the Nevada deserts.
Be that as it may, not all NASA expeditions were so successful; the mission forever entered popular culture in the West Apollo 13:
- An oxygen tank on board exploded.
- The disaster resulted in a failure in the fuel system and a loss of more than 60% of capacity.
- The ship lost the opportunity to visit the Moon.
- On the way back, the crew had to navigate solely by the stars to get to Earth.
- The landing itself can hardly be called soft and safe.
- Throughout the flight, the astronauts constantly risked their own lives.
It was in such a tense situation that James Lowell issued the well-known phrase about problems on board. The catastrophic situation on the ship was described in a few words.
First mention of "Houston"
Some believe that the quote actually came from the first astronaut to land on the moon. But Neil already went down in history with his “big step for humanity,” so let him give a little glory to someone else.
By the way, in 1964 the film “ Robinson Crusoe on Mars“It was in this film that the cherished phrase was first heard from wide screens. Later it was used in the historical drama "Apollo 13", in the science fiction film "Armageddon" and in huge quantities less famous works. Modern culture is indeed largely based on quoting and references to the past.
Some argue that such a “step back” will not lead to anything good, that the absence fresh ideas will not benefit society.
But let's see what happens in 5-10 years; so far there is no serious crisis in art.
Prospects for space exploration
Any human achievement is not immune from accidents and mistakes:
- All equipment designed for atmospheric and space flights undergo multiple checks.
- During testing, completely unexpected malfunctions are often discovered and people even die.
- But even such precautions do not guarantee that at the most crucial moment everything will go exactly as planned.
- Therefore, during such serious programs, it is important to admit your mistakes and try to correct the situation according to the situation.
- Examples of well-coordinated rescue operations of pilots and astronauts form the basis of books and films.
- Rescue of pilots, even in a failed mission, significantly increases the prestige of the state.
Unfortunately or fortunately, the era of space exploration ended before it really began:
- Projects for manned flights to the Moon were curtailed until better times.
- Man has not set foot on any planet in our system.
- Most large projects were canceled due to enormous costs.
- No country except Russia has this moment working rockets capable of launching cargo and crew into planetary orbit.
Where did the “Houston, we have problems” come from?
For the first time about its problems the ground base informed by James Lowell:
- Everything happened during the next lunar expedition.
- An oxygen tank on board suddenly exploded.
- The ship was able to return to Earth with living crew members only thanks to the coordinated actions of the crew and the rescue team.
- This phrase did not gain much popularity among us, since the USSR did not strive to get ahead of the Americans on the Moon.
Even before the disaster phrase was used in the 1964 film. This is not some kind of prediction, it’s just that Houston is a mission control center, and the film itself was on a space theme - “Robinson Crusoe on Mars.”
The quote was later reflected in popular culture West, the impetus for its popularization was the film “Apollo 13”, and the film “Armageddon” gave a second life. But even while listening to music or reading books, you can, at the most unexpected moment, stumble upon this expression, which has already become a catchphrase.
We all grew up in Russian culture and may not know: “Houston, we have problems” - where the phrase comes from and where it was first said. The information may not be the most useful, but on the other hand, you can always argue with a person who watched “Armageddon” and is confident that he is right.
Video with this phrase
In this video is an excerpt from the film "Apollo 13", in which actor Tom Hanks will say famous phrase"Houston, we have problems":
The American spacecraft is flying to the Moon. On the third day of the flight, a crew member starts mixing tanks with liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Suddenly, the second oxygen tank explodes and two of the command module's three fuel cells fail. “Houston, we have a problem,” the ship's commander reports to mission control.
After two successful manned missions to the Moon, the third flight was supposed to be an easy, predictable space walk. But instead, April 1970 almost became a dark month in the history of American astronautics. When an oxygen tank on board the spacecraft exploded, the accident forced the cancellation of the lunar landing and jeopardized the three astronauts' return to Earth. What happened next? Audiences were reminded of this in 1995 by director Ron Howard's excellent biopic, named after the ill-fated Apollo 13.
When an American experiences an amazing adventure, he usually writes a book about it - the sooner the better. Civilians immediately sign a contract with the publishing house, military personnel - as soon as they retire. However, not everyone is in a hurry with revelations and revelations. If the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, published his autobiography in 1973 (his flight on Apollo 11, we recall, took place in 1969), then the commander of Apollo 13, James Lovell, could not find time to write for almost twenty years books about his most famous flight. Having retired in 1973, it was only in 1992 that he, in collaboration with journalist Jeffrey Kluger, began writing a documentary work called Lost Moon. And his book became a Hollywood sensation before it was even completed.
Generally speaking, there was nothing standing in the way of making an epic film about Apollo 13 long before Lovell picked up a pen. But even when we're talking about about a well-known and well-documented story, Hollywood prefers that the film be based on a specific book that sets a point of view on events, contains unique details and provides the future film with copyright protection (anyone can write a script based on generally known information, but an autobiography can be filmed only the one who bought the rights to it). Therefore, as soon as it became known that Lovell and Kluger were writing Lost Moon, Hollywood immediately organized an auction for the film rights to the potential bestseller.
Ron Howard on the set of Apollo 13
For those producers who were 40-50 years old in the early 1990s, the commander of Apollo 13 was not just a famous astronaut, but a great American, almost on par with the crew of Apollo 11, which overtook the USSR in the space race. Therefore, many of them fought for the right to make a film about Lovell, and in this battle the most devoted astronautics fan won. Producer Michael Bostic of Imagine Entertainment was born into a space program family and grew up in Houston, where the American manned flight control center is located. So Bostic convinced Imagine's founders, producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard, that they should buy the rights to Moon at all costs.
Grazer and Howard did not immediately succumb to persuasion. Their previous joint films were not special effects, but actor’s productions like “Splash” and “Parents”, and the producer and director did not want to interrupt the tradition and stage a picture in which much would depend on the reliability of video tricks. But after reading the synopsis of Moon and talking with Lovell, they realized that the saga of Apollo 13 was not a story about gravity, short circuits and fuel cells, but about people aboard the ship and on Earth who performed miracles courage, professionalism and ingenuity to turn disaster into triumph. So Imagine won the auction, paying $150,000 upfront and promising to pay another $700,000 if the book was published and became a bestseller.
However, the studio was not going to wait for this. Work on the script began immediately after the contract was signed, and the book and film were created in parallel, based on Lovell's memoirs, stories from his wife Marilyn, interviews with participants in the lunar program, and documentary evidence (including surviving recordings of Apollo 13 negotiations with Earth).
Initially, two Texas journalists making their feature film debuts were poring over the Apollo 13 script - William Broyles Jr. (future screenwriter of Cast Away and Flags of Our Fathers) and Al Reinert, an Oscar nominee for documentary 1989's For All Mankind, which chronicled the history of the Apollo program.
When they, having sifted through a huge amount of material, reduced it to a two-hour film, the final polish was put in place by the more experienced screenwriter and director John Sayles (author of the script for “Night Skies,” which formed the basis for the script for Spielberg’s “E.T.”). Ron Howard was delighted with his work, but Sayles had to settle for praise and a large fee. His contribution to the text was not great enough for the Hollywood Writers Guild to allow his name to be placed in the credits next to the names of Broyles and Reinert.
On the set of "Apollo 13"
The most difficult task facing the trio of co-authors was composing the text in an almost foreign language - in the “bird dialect” used at NASA of technical terms and space jargon. To make the picture understandable, lines were scattered throughout the script to explain what was happening in words that the audience could understand. Some of them were put into the mouths of television journalists telling Americans in 1970 about the Apollo 13 accident.
Also a problem for the writers was, oddly enough, the heroism of the astronauts. According to the memoirs of the expedition members and the records of their negotiations, during the entire flight there was not a single significant conflict on board. Knowing full well that only well-coordinated work would save them, the astronauts kept themselves under control and strictly followed the orders of the commander and the MCC. It was worthy of respect and imitation, but at the same time boring and not dramatic enough for a feature film. After all, if the characters do not succumb to fear, then the audience is not infected by their emotions and is not fully aware of the danger that threatens the characters. Therefore, in the script, the astronauts were made slightly mentally weaker than they actually were.
Still from the movie "Apollo 13"
This decision also affected the casting. Lovell hoped to be played by Kevin Costner, who looked very much like the astronaut in his best years. Howard, however, offered the role to his old friend and big astronautics fan Tom Hanks. Hanks, after “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump,” became a global superstar, and this was not the first time for him to play an American hero. But his Lovell was more human, physically weak and emotionally vulnerable, than the “unshakable superman” Costner would have made. And this was exactly the kind of hero Howard wanted to show in his film - a man who conquers his fears and doubts, and not a stone idol who doesn’t care about anything.
For the same reason, the roles of astronauts in the film were given to Kevin Bacon (reserve command module pilot Jim Swigert), Bill Paxton (lunar module pilot Fred Hayes) and Gary Sinise (for medical reasons, the main command module pilot Ken Mattingly remained on Earth) - bright, charismatic , courageous stars with an emotional wormhole. On the contrary, the most “unshakable” actor in the film, Ed Harris, became not an astronaut, but flight director Gene Kranz. In the emotional picture of the film, he was the rock against which the waves raised by the other leading performers crashed.
Still from the movie "Apollo 13"
The director gave the role of Marilyn Lovell to Kathleen Quinlan from Oliver Stone's musical biopic The Doors (1991), which is not essential for the main plot, but important for “humanizing” the story of Apollo 13. Howard also featured his entire family in the film - brother Clint Howard (CC cameraman Sy Liebergot), mother Jean Speegle-Howard (mother of James Lovell), father Rance Howard (priest of the Lovell family), as well as wife Cheryl Howard and daughter Bryce Dallas Howard ( members of the crowd in the scene where the astronauts say goodbye to their loved ones). In turn, the real James Lovell played the captain of an aircraft carrier, who at the end of the film greets the astronauts who have returned safely to Earth.
Even at the script approval stage, Howard had to answer an extremely important question: “How to film levitation scenes in zero gravity?” The obvious and traditional solution was to hang the actors on thin cables, but this approach, according to the director, did not create a sufficiently reliable picture.
Still from the movie "Apollo 13"
As a result, Steven Spielberg suggested the answer to Howard. He suggested using NASA's aerial laboratory aboard the Boeing KC-135. When such an aircraft takes off high into the sky and then dives towards the ground, weightlessness occurs in its cabin for several tens of seconds. The lab is typically used for physics experiments and astronaut training, but Spielberg noted that it could be used for filming if an Apollo set was built on the plane. Of course, this meant that the film could not have multi-minute continuous “weightless” fragments, but Howard still intended to edit the picture “finely” enough to emphasize its drive.
Using the KC-135 was expensive and technically challenging, and the cameramen, set designers and lighting designers had to rack their brains to ensure that the scenes filmed on the aerial set were indistinguishable from those filmed on the exact same set at Universal Studios in Hollywood ( fragments in which no one flew through the air were created on the ground). But still, the aerial filming, which lasted almost four hours in total, was cheaper, simpler and more believable than simulating weightlessness using cables and computer graphics. In addition, the actors on board the Boeing KC-135 were able to fully feel like astronauts, and the rocket scientists advising the film after these flights gained respect for the Hollywood people, and in the future they worked with the Californians not as “outsiders”, but as “our own” .
Still from the movie "Apollo 13"
The latter was extremely important, since the filmmakers needed to understand literally every detail of the expedition, and this was impossible without full cooperation with NASA. Astronauts, MCC employees, space engineers, high-ranking bosses - everyone helped Howard and his team recreate the tragedy and triumph of Apollo 13 for viewers and posterity. The people most often supported by NASA were set designers, computer graphics artists, and actors. Jack Swigert did not live to see the film, but all the other key members of the expedition and their families spent a lot of time with the stars of the film so that they could transform into their characters (Bacon had to draw inspiration from recordings of television interviews and conversations with people who knew Swigert).
Initially, Howard, in keeping with Hollywood space tradition, planned to extensively use real NASA footage in the film. But, having found them in the archives, he discovered that they were of too poor quality to be included in the 1995 film. So parts like the close-up of the rocket launch were painstakingly recreated using miniature models and computer graphics. This made it possible to create footage that would have been impossible to capture in reality (at least until the advent of super-fireproof flying cameras) and that had never been seen before. Some of these excerpts impressed agency staff so much that they asked for them to be used in their training materials.
Still from the movie "Apollo 13"
In order to temporarily become cosmonauts and employees of the Mission Control Center, it was not enough for the actors to read the script and get acquainted with their prototypes. Hanks, Bacon and Paxton took a short course as a novice astronaut under Lovell's guidance, and then, together with their colleagues who joined them as ground specialists, took a course in space physics and understood the basics of controlling starships. Howard wanted his actors to understand every line they spoke, no matter how tricky it was. Of course, they got much more pleasure from trying on spacesuits than from studying parabolic trajectories!
The main artistic reference for Howard was the 1983 film “The Right Guys,” which tells the story of the first steps of American astronautics. Directed by Philip Kaufman, the film was awarded four minor Oscars and is considered a modern Hollywood classic, but it was also a box office failure. With a $25 million budget, it earned only $21 million and nearly killed the studio that produced it, The Ladd Company, which worked in tandem with Warner Brothers. Therefore, the success of the $52 million Apollo 13 was by no means guaranteed. However, Howard and Grazer believed in their cosmic plot and in their star actors. And they did not disappoint.
Still from the movie "Apollo 13"
Unlike “The Boys,” “Apollo 13,” which was released on June 30, 1995, traveled around the world with great success. The film earned $355 million and received rave reviews from viewers and critics. Both of them appreciated how carefully Howard treated historical facts(except for the slight deheroization of the astronauts) and what a fascinating, pathetic and touching picture he managed to create. In turn, film academics nominated the film for nine Oscars and awarded the film only prizes in the categories of “best sound” and “best editing.”
Can the phrase “Houston, we have a problem,” which has become an integral part of the American language, be considered a popular movie quote? Many believe that no, since these are words that were spoken during the expedition and not invented by the scriptwriters. But what Lovell actually said was not “Houston, we have a problem,” but “Houston, we had a problem.” He was referring to the explosion of the tank and only later realized that the “problem” had just begun. Subsequently, his words began to be misquoted, and Apollo 13 entered them into the history of cinema in a distorted form.
So this is still a quote not from Lovell, but from the scriptwriters who knew how it really was, but chose to make the astronaut a little more perspicacious than he was in reality. Well, not the worst compensation for replacing Kevin Costner with Tom Hanks. And it’s a rare case when in the key phrase of the key scene of a film based on true events, Hollywood people misinterpreted just one word. Eh, it would always be like this...
Culture
No the best way make an impression smart person, how to timely mention a famous quote from the treasury of world literature.
However, many quotes taken out of context often have completely the opposite meaning.
Here are a few of these famous phrases that people often misunderstand.
Quote about love
1. "Love, you move the world"
This is one of the famous misinterpreted quotes that was mentioned in Lewis Carroll's famous fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland". One of the characters in the book, The Duchess, says this phrase in passing after spanking her child for sneezing. In context the author used this wise saying sarcastically.
“And the moral from here is: “Love, love, you move the world...,” said the Duchess.
“Someone said that the most important thing is not to meddle in other people’s affairs,” Alice whispered.
“So it’s one and the same thing,” said the Duchess.”
Movie quotes
2. "Elementary, my dear Watson"
This phrase is known throughout the world as belonging to Sherlock Holmes and is considered the same attribute of the famous British detective as his pipe and hat. However, Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson" in none of Conan Doyle's 56 short stories and 4 works. However, this phrase appeared very often in films.
The words "Elementary" and "my dear Watson" appear in close proximity in the Hunchback story, but are not spoken together. In a long dialogue, after the brilliant deduction demonstrated by Holmes, Watson exclaims: “Excellent!”, to which Holmes replies, “Elementary!”
The phrase itself first appeared in the book "Psmith the Journalist" by the English writer P. Wodehouse, as well as in the 1929 film about Sherlock Holmes, perhaps to make the characters more memorable.
3. "Houston, we have a problem."
On Saturday, April 11, 1970, astronauts Jim Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Hayes entered orbit aboard Apollo 13. A few days later, an accident occurred, causing the crew to lose their source of light, water and electricity.
Crew members reported technical problems to the Houston base." Houston we had a problem".
In the film based on these events, this phrase was spoken in the present tense to add drama. Nowadays it is used to communicate any problem, often with a humorous meaning.
Bible Quotes
4. "God helps those who help themselves"
This phrase mentioned as a passage from the Bible, although the phrase itself has never appeared in any translation of this book. It is also believed to have been spoken by the famous American figure Benjamin Franklin, as well as the British theorist Algernon Sidney.
The idea is that divinity cannot replace the actions of man himself.
Interestingly, this phrase contradicts what the Bible says, where the only salvation is in God, who will “save the helpless.”
5. "Money is the root of all evil"
This phrase is a misinterpretation of the quote " The love of money is the root of all evil", which was mentioned in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul.
And even this phrase is a distorted translation of a Greek phrase that meant that greed can lead to all sorts of evil, and not that all evil lies in the love of money.
This quote may have acquired a stronger meaning during industrial revolution, when society concentrated on accumulating wealth.
Quotes with meaning
6. "The end justifies the means"
This quote, attributed to the Italian thinker Macchiaveli, has exactly the opposite meaning that real phrase, which was used in his work "The Prince".
It says " Si guarda al fine", that is, "one must consider the end result," which means that "the end does not always justify the means." In other words, instead of being merciless in achieving a great goal, Macchiavelli was trying to say that one must always consider whether some things of sacrifice and effort.
7. "Religion is the opium of the people"
This is another example of misinterpretation of the words of the famous figure Karl Marx. Not only did he never directly say that religion is the opium of the people, but he himself words had a completely different meaning at that time.
The quote that was used as a critique of Hegel's work was:
“Religion is the sigh of an oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of soulless orders. Religion is the opium of the people.”
The phrase is a bit ambiguous, since at that time opium was not considered a mind-clouding substance, and opiates were legal, freely sold and considered a useful medicine. From this point of view, Marx considered religion to be a useful tool that alleviates suffering.
Not everyone has heard of the capital of Texas, but Houston, of course, is familiar to everyone by the common phrase “Houston, we have a problem!” from the movie "Apollo 13". In fact, the astronauts’ line sounded a little different, but it was this version that took root in popular culture.
Houston is rightly called the Space City: the Lyndon Johnson Space Center is located in its suburbs. NASA uses it to train astronauts, control missions, and develop spaceships, medical research and so on. In addition, there is now a museum there where you can look at shuttles, pieces of the Moon and other evidence of human space flights.
Otherwise, it is an ordinary American metropolis, very large (4th most populous in the USA after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago) and quite dirty. Local smog and poor water are especially notorious, although in recent decades Houston has been gradually introducing green manufacturing, energy production and transportation.
Houston experienced real problems in the 80s, when, amid the oil crisis, the city lost 220 thousand jobs and could simply die out. He was saved by the accelerated diversification of the economy: dependence on the “oil needle” was halved (from 87 to 44%), and the main emphasis was on the aerospace industry and healthcare.
01. Downtown is small, there are several rather old skyscrapers. This “opener” in the center is CenterPoint Energy Plaza, built in 1974, and the “pencil” on the left is 1600 Smith Street, built in 1984.
02. There are historical buildings in the center, but there are very few of them, and they look clearly superfluous among the primitive skyscrapers... This is the main building of the Houston Public Library (1926).
03. City Hall resembles a truncated classic skyscraper. It's like there was something here that looked like the Empire State Building, but then the top was cut off.
04.
05. The center is somewhat abandoned in places, there are unkempt buildings. Really reminds me of Detroit.
06. The bollards give an idea of what buildings were at this intersection before. Of course, the nightstand is decorated with a Lone Star. To make the star not so lonely, there are two of them.
07. Downtown sometimes looks deserted. Pay attention to the multi-level parking! We will return to them later.
08. Bicycle rental. The bike stations here have names.
09. Like the state capital, Houston has a network of dedicated bike lanes. In general, in the USA, all major cities have taken a course towards cycling)
10. A regular bus running on gas. But for polluted Houston, it's progress. Now there are two routes that serve the central part of the city, travel seems to be free.
11. In 2004, a small light rail system called METRORail opened in Houston. Two lines are currently operating, another one is being completed, and traffic should be launched on it this year.
12. The compositions are used as locally produced (Urbos LRV Spanish development)...
13. And purely European ones (Siemens S70).
14. This is the main street of the city, which was recently reconstructed. You'll be surprised, but it's called Main Street)
15. The reconstruction project was called Midtown Houston and affected several streets at once.
16. Concrete on central streets is gradually being replaced with tiles and bricks. The intersection is paved in such a way as to clearly mark the tram tracks. Drivers automatically slow down before such an intersection.
17. For the movement of cars, one lane was left here in each direction.
18. The paths are separated, there are flower beds between them. In general, there is less and less space left for cars)))
19. The parking is not continuous, but there are rare pockets.
20. Tram tracks, landing platform, bicycle station and only one lane for cars. This is how a modern street in a big city should look.
21. Many American cities are now being reconstructed, driving motorists off the streets, and creating pedestrian spaces.
22. Houston is no exception, despite Texans' passion for cars.
23. Not bad.
24. Not just a stop, but a full-fledged platform.
25. There are paid and free zones on the routes. Houstonians can buy something like our "Troika" and in some cases "earn" free trips. But between such signs there are obviously no exceptions for payment.
26. Payment before boarding at such machines.
27.
28.
29. Car traffic in the center is in some cases one-way. Here I would like to say that automobile cities are becoming a thing of the past, but read the post to the end;)
30. Improvement
31.
32. A non-obvious solution with trees in the center of the sidewalk.
34. Instead open ground there are plants and wood shavings.
35. An attempt to make the city car-friendly leads to the construction of such multi-story parking lots right in the center.
36. There are a lot of multi-level parking lots in Houston, but even they are not enough. There is nothing good from such parking lots.
37. Prices, of course, are lower than in Manhattan: an hour - only 284 rubles, 2 hours - 568 rubles.
38. All vacant lots are also usually occupied by parking lots.
39. The transition is marked with paving.
40. Houston storm drain manhole. Pelican and fish promote clean water.
41. Some hatches indicate exactly where the drain leads. Makes you wonder whether to dump some nasty stuff here if your children are swimming in this bay tomorrow.
42.
43. Many American cafes have iPads. It is suggested to give a tip in the amount of 10 to 25% of the bill. One of the reasons, .
44. This is the so-called Rothko Chapel; 14 works by Mark Rothko in black are displayed on its walls. In front of the entrance is the "Broken Obelisk", also known as the "Black Needle".
Interiors:
45. Sign in front of the Houston mandir (Hindu temple)
46. And here is the temple itself. It's unexpected to see something like this in a typical American city.
47. It is believed to be the first traditional mandir in North America. It was opened in 2004. To create it, 33,000 individual elements were hand-cut in India, which were then transported to the USA and assembled in Texas as a construction set.
48. And this is classic Houston, without any trams and bicycles.
49. Only highways, only hardcore.
50. And giant interchanges.
51.
52. Look at the console with traffic lights! Moreover, it is elegantly topped with a lantern!
53. One-story America
Travel notes: