The space center is really and truly super cool. There was a visitor's center just inside with a big sign that said, "Let us help you plan your day," and we stopped in so that someone could help us. The nice man suggested we take a bus tour out to the Apollo site, then see the Atlantis shuttle building, see a 3D IMAX movie, and go to the Hall of Legends. We took his advice and did practically all of that. I'm going to include my pictures as well as pictures from the Space Center web site. Theirs are better than mine.
We began with the bus tour. With video narration and additional information from our bus driver, we drove out to where Apollo rockets and the space shuttles were assembled and most of them were launched, saw the huge building where rockets and shuttles were assembled, and the equally huge movers that take a fully assembled space vehicle out to the launch pad. We heard about what's currently happening with the space program and the new push to get to Mars. It was all super interesting, and Brandt and I saw an alligator floating in a pond, too! The whole area is a nature preserve, mostly because the area is restricted. They also need four miles of space around the launch site where there is nothing, because if you are too close when a rocket launches, you could die. If you were to be within a mile at launch, the heat coming off the rocket would kill you. Within two miles, the sound waves would stop your heart and kill you. I don't know what the poor animals do that are within that distance, but maybe they've all wised up and stay well away, too.
This is the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The VAB is the largest single-story building in the world, was the tallest building in Florida until 1974, and is still the tallest building in the United States outside an urban area. It was originally built to allow for the vertical assembly of the Saturn V rocket, and then was used to assemble the space shuttles. It's all open inside, has huge cranes that can lift 325 tons, and its own weather system. The rockets and assembled inside, then moved to the launch pad by huge crawlers like the one below.
This is one of the crawler-transporters that are used to move a fully assembled rocket and its launch pad base from the VAB to the launch pad four miles away. They have a mass of 6 million pounds and move on eight tracks. Each track has 57 shoes and each shoe weighs nearly a ton. They move along a crawlerway seven feet deep and made of river rock to reduce the chance of sparks at a speed of one mile an hour loaded and two miles an hour unloaded. It takes about five hours to get from the VAB to the launch complex.
We saw a gopher tortoise preparing to cross the road.
They are a common sight at the space center.
This is launch site 39A where the majority of both Apollo mission and space shuttle missions were launched. It's the site of the Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts, as well as the launch pad from which the Challenger Space Shuttle was fired and then exploded. It has been modified since the shuttle program shut down in 2011, but is still used. There is a scheduled launch next Sunday, and preparations were being made at the launch site. The water silo stores water used for sound suppression during launch. Just before engine ignition, 300,000 gallons of water are released onto the launch platform to muffle the intense sound. The large white clouds that shoot out from the rocket as it is launched is not smoke but steam.
The bus tour drops you off at a large building where you learn all about the Apollo Space Program, specifically about Apollo 8 (first crewed mission) and see the actual consoles used during Apollo launches.
Then you enter a huge space where you see an actual Apollo rocket, 363-feet long, the largest rocket ever shot into space. The various sections that separate from the command module are identified and you can get a feel of how enormous the rocket was, and how small the space was the astronauts had to be in. In the same building was a pod, clothing from space missions, lots of cool pictures, and a cafe. We had lunch here, along with hundreds of other hungry people.
The blasting side of the rocket.
Gives you an idea of how huge it is.
This is a moon walk space suit, and a moon rover.
Brandt wanted one of his very own.
The bus tour returns you to the main part of the space center right in front of a building that houses space shuttle Atlantis. Outside the building are the fuel tanks and rocket the space shuttles were attached to in order to get them launched into space. They are BIG!! It's hard to get an idea from pictures about their actual size, but they are sizable. After a short video presentation, you enter a vast space with the actual space shuttle Atlantis inside. The actual shuttle!! At the end of the video presentation there is supposed to be a dramatic revealing of the shuttle, but there was a technical glitch of some sort with ours, so the drama was lost. It's still pretty spectacular to see it there, in all its glory, suspended from the ceiling.
A cute boy waiting for the bus.
We learned the NASA symbol on the front of Brandt's shirt is called the "meatball."
Go figure.
My pictures
Their picture
In this building, there was the space shuttle, a Hubble telescope, flight deck simulators, screens where you could practice simulated working outside the shuttle, a launch simulator, a retry slide, a tribute to the crews of the Challenger and Columbia shuttles, and lots of cool displays, like how to use the bathroom or sleep or eat in space. We all loved it!! The kids ran around touching and manipulating everything that could be touched or manipulated (and probably several things that shouldn't have been), and Brandt, Blythe, and I did the launch simulation. Brandt was a bit nervous, but they made it out to be a bit more than it actually was. They didn't let us take our cameras in, so I don't have a picture of us doing the launch.
Brandt is using the facilities.
Their picture of the launch simulation.
The instruction to all those pictured was "Scream like it's amazing!!!"
So they are.
But it's not.
Not really.
Cool, but not amazing!!!
And the slide.
Not even particularly cool.
Just a slide.
Brandt and I went down.
Blythe and Kent did not.
Having seen the Apollo and Atlantis stuff, we took a breather and watched a 3D movie called A Beautiful Planet. It was all about the International Space Station, the astronauts who live there, and the view they've got of planet Earth. It was very interesting, especially pictures of the earth at night. Most striking was the contrast between North and South Korea at night. South Korea is lit up, bright all over the country. North Korea has a tiny spot of light where Pyongyang is, and then the rest of the country is dark. It's sort of eerie.
After the movie we wandered around the Rocket Garden, sat in various astronaut pods, and called it a day. All in all it was a fabulous stop. We all learned lots and enjoyed the things we saw and had a really cool day.
Brandt and I in front of a mural of the International Space Station.
After a brief stop for a sandwich at Subway, we headed south to Coral Springs to be with James and Alisa. We'll be there for four days and are looking forward to being with them. We listened to two full books on tape during our drive (about three hours from the Space Center to James and Alisa's house), and got well into a third. We didn't pull into their house until nearly 10:00pm, but they greeted us warmly, had banana bread as a snack before bed, and got us all situated before we went to sleep. Our trip is going super well!!
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