Space Center Houston tour guide Irwin Stewart.
for a movie about space to get a VIP tour from Stewart, though he has guided actor Natalie Portman, who portrayed an astronaut in 2019’s Lucy in the Sky, and director Alfonso Cuarón, an Oscar winner for 2013’s Gravity . You just have to reserve a spot on one of Stewart’s week- days-only excursions, which cost about $200 per person and are limited to small groups. With light gray hair styled in the manner of Albert Einstein’s, the 56-year-old Stewart is expressive and enthusiastic, often peppering conversations with “Did you know that?” He and eleven others on the Space Center’s sta give these specialized tours, and Stewart is comfortable with famous visitors. He is also a certified commercial pilot who spent more than a decade as an aircraft-maintenance in- structor. In other words, he can go deep on all things that fly. He can easily talk for three hours, the average length of a tour, and show no sign of flagging. Stewart greets me on a hot fall day at the entrance to Space Center Houston and makes small talk while he escorts me around the back of the building to a black SUV. Then, as he drives onto the NASA campus, he launch- es into tour guide mode. His voice becomes louder and more animated. “There’s one hundred buildings on this cam- pus! Each has its own specialty.” To read the rest of this article about Stew- art and more of our favorite tour guides all across Texas, subscribe to Texas Monthly.
IF YOU’VE BEEN among the million-plus annual visitors to Space Center Houston, the museum at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, you’ve probably seen the Apollo 17 command module, walked through the replica of the space shuttle Independence, and touched a moon rock. You may have even taken a tram to the 1,600-acre working campus behind the museum and walked up to the Saturn V rocket —more than thirty stories tall—lying on its side like a giant in repose. But have you met Irwin Stewart? You don’t have to be a celebrity preparing
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