Well today we headed to the Kennedy Space Centre.

I think it is fair to say that the parents enjoyed this day more than the kids. Both Isabelle and I remember the Space Shuttle on its first voyage and of course the tragedy of the Challenger accident.



The Gray Line shuttle from Orlando was awesome. Besides being entertaining, our bus driver gave us some great tips which ensured we saw the most important things.

When we arrived we had a meet and greet with Marcos Pontes, a Brazilian Air Force pilot and astronaut. He became the first Brazilian to go into space when he launched into the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-8 on March 30, 2006. These meet and greets are a special treat for Gray Line customers.

Soon we boarded the bus for the Space Centre Tour. The bus takes you on a 45 minute tour of the facility. We passed the Vehicle Assembly Building, one of the largest volume structures in the world where Space Shuttles were assembled. In the future the facility will be used for building commercial launch vehicles.



We also saw one of the crawler transporters. These things carried more than 18 million pounds. Responsible for moving rockets and shuttles, it moves at a staggering top speed of 1.6 miles per hour. It took 5 hours to move a shuttle from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch site ... some 3.5 miles in distance.



My highlight was seeing Launch Pad 39A. 39A is where it all happened, the launch of Apollo 11, the first aircraft to land humans on the moon launched from here. It was a buzz to see this site. It was still being used for Space Shuttle launches well after the Apollo series.



At the end of the bus tour we arrived at the Saturn V Centre. The exhibition is a tribute to the Apollo series. It starts with the simulation of the fire room, the room is complete with the original control room furniture, news clips etc. The room simulates an Apollo launch. Amazing!



Once the simulation is done you enter the main exhibit space where you see a Saturn V rocket. Nothing can describe how impressive this thing is. The building also holds some artifacts from the Apollo Mission, most noteworthy are.



1. A piece of moon rock you can touch.
2. The space suit Alan Shepard wore on the moon complete with moon dust still on it.
3. The return capsule recovered from Alan Shepard's mission (Apollo 14).



Another highlight was meeting Jim Jones. It pays to talk to people sometimes. We saw Jim standing in the corner wearing a NASA uniform and struck up a conversation. Jim was an acoustics engineer at NASA. He was responsible for the initial recordings of the Apollo series including the one we heard in the Apollo firing room simulation. Jim went on to do the meterological electrical development for the Apollo series and later helped as part of a team to develop the Precision Approach Path Indicator which helped Shuttle pilots negotiate the correct landing approach. The system was successful and later used in airports around the world for commercial pilots. Awesome person to meet and chat with.



Back on the bus. Next stop ... Space Shuttle Atlantis. The entry into the facility is impressive. A simulated take off of the Atlantis Space Shuttle with the finale being the reveal of the Atlantis itself. The boys loved seeing the shuttle up close and also the many interactive exhibits. The highlight had to be the Shuttle Launch experience. Astronauts believe the simulator is the closest you can get to the real feeling. We loved it as did the boys.



The 3D IMAX experience was a must, we saw the Space Station movie. It went for 45 minutes and was well worth watching..

Last stop was the rocket garden. You can see some unused rockets including the Apollo Saturn 1B rocket and also the orange bridge used by Neil Armstrong and his team to access Apollo 11. You can walk in Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 crew's footsteps.



KSC is not a theme park, it is a working space centre. It does have some great interactive displays and gives you an opportunity to get up close to technology you have seen in the past. It is also of course a great historical visit. The sequence we followed in visiting the centre was recommended by the bus driver and it was excellent as any other sequence would have most likely resulted in us not getting to see as much as we did.

This is a must see for anyone visiting Orlando.

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Dad - 11,161
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