The same tram takes you to Rocket Park, where a giant barn hides a surprise inside: the Saturn V rocket, lying on its side and ready for exploration. Dozens of other exhibits, talks and shows make up the Space Center, including the newish Independence Plaza, where you can tour a replica space shuttle atop a NASA 905 shuttle carrier aircraft.

Houston’s Museum District features 13 museums, everything from the zoo to a Holocaust museum to a museum for photography.

The Museum of Fine Arts Houston is one of the largest art museums in the U.S., and it is expanding, with a 14-acre, $450 million redevelopment project that will be finished in 2019. The current museum contains more than 65,000 works of art, room after room of paintings, halls of sculptures and some stunning special exhibits. We especially loved the Ron Mueck exhibit, there until Aug. 13, a collection of sculptures that “balances realism with the unreal.” A lounging couple so lifelike you see their pores, leg hair, wrinkles and fat rolls, but they are twice life-size, giving them an eerie quality — although not quite so eerie as the naked man, half size, sitting, dejected on an old boat (mfah.org).