The Kennedy Space Centre

Saturday 2nd January 2010

We went to the Kennedy Space Centre today.What a bargain; only $36 each and no extra charge to park. The ticket offers us two days access within a one week period, plus it also gives us entry into the Astronauts Hall of Fame.

First we went to the Imax 3D cinema for a brief history lesson followed by a walk around the ‘Rocket Garden’ where there are 7 rockets, one of them Saturn 1B, the rocket that launched the Apollo Service Command Module fitted with the first international space component, the docking ring, which allowed the American and Russian space stations to link up and at 223 feet, it is huge.



There were also models of the part of the rocket that the astronauts got to inhabit;and that is tiny. There were replica rockets and capsules from the Mercury Mission which Paul could not actually fit in; we later discovered that one of the requirements to be a ‘spaceman’ in those days was to have a maximum height of 5’11’’.

A NASA bus ferried us to the Launch viewing platform. On the way the driver gave us some interesting facts and a couple of informative videos including details of:
The Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) where the shuttle is put back together, having been taken apart and each component checked in separate buildings nearby. There is a painting of the ‘Stars and Stripes’ on the front of the building taking up just a small part of the facing wall – the blue part of this flag is bigger than an American football pitch!

The Shuttle Transporter – the vehicle that transports the assembled shuttle and fuel tanks to the launch site. It moves along at about one mile an hour and takes about 8 hours from the VAB to the launch site; we were also given
information about the fuelling; but we were disappointed to hear that a shuttle was due to be rolled out the following week as we were intending to be many miles south by then.

Then we were told about the huge volume of water that is released at high pressure to dull the noise of ignition. This has nothing to do with the environment, the wildlife residents of the area or even the humans living in the area; it is released because the noise of ignition is so great, it can actually damage the equipment. Other information included the ‘sparklers’that are set off at the same time so that any fumes are ignited safely rather than blowing up the equipment (smart, these scientists!). We were given so much information that without taking notes it is quiet hard to take it all in, let alone remember it all. We then climbed the LC39 Observation Gantry for an excellent view of two of the launch sites.

We were both impressed how efficiently the tourist route was organised. We joined the queue for the bus to the next site, dedicated to Apollo 11 and the first moon landings. The queue was worrying long but we were on a bus and on our way within the time it takes to eat an apple.

We were treated to yet another film on arrival at the ‘First moon landing’ exhibition followed by the hall containing the Saturn 5 rocket and even more facts and figures;

obviously not the actual rocket that went up, but a duplicate and absolutely ‘awesome’ nonetheless


The bus drivers finish their day at 6pm which is when the outlying exhibitions also close, so by the time we had finished in the Apollo 11 shed it was time to be ferried back to the main tourist part. On alighting from the bus we noticed that there was a ‘shuttle’ with scaffolding attached and people going in an out so we joined the queue and were able to look into the crew’s cabin and supplies area as well as the payload area. After that we noticed that there was a ‘simulation of launch’ which we were eager to experience. However, having experienced the Epcot ‘Mission to Space’ ride it was really very tame, just a whole lot of shaking really, no G force included at all.




To view all the photos I took at both The Kennedy Space Centre and Merritt Island - Click Here