Day 19

Friday, Oct. 14

Astronaut Hall of Fame

Another fine day in paradise.  We took off after breakfast and filling up with gas, towards the north and The Kennedy Space Center.  It was only about 30 miles and GPS “Jill” got us there quite easily.  There are some pretty big highways here, but they weren’t too crowded.  It may have had something to do with the time we were travelling (left Melbourne after 10).

Booster Rocket at the Entrance

Getting off the freeway, we headed east to the Center.  The road was single lane each way, but again, no too busy.  I wonder what it is like when they are launching a spacecraft.  We passed a War Plane Museum, an Astronaut Hall Of Fame, the Police Hall Of Fame, and other places like that.  Then we came to the turn-off to The Kennedy Space Center.  There is a replica shuttle and booster tank laying at the entrance, and it is very big.

Once parked, we approached the entrance.  We could have gotten tickets to just wander around the facility, or to take a guided tour.  It’s not likely we will return again, so we decided on the guided tour.  It was a 2 hour bus tour that took us to a number of places of interest on the Center – Vehicle Assembly Building, Launch Pads, and some other things that I can’t remember what they were called.  The size of this place is enormous.

Vehicle Assembly Building

Once we had an overview of the site from a stop beside the causeway (there is water of both sides – one can be fished, the other is protected from any craft with motors) and our guide pointed out the various launch pads and places where things happened we took off.  From this location, the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB for those who like acronyms which it appears NASA does) didn’t look overly big.  There is an American Flag painted on the side of the building, and to get an idea of the scale of the flag, he gave us some statistics about that flag.  Each stripe on the flag is the width of the bus (about 8 feet), the stars are each 6 feet across, the blue part is the size of a basketball court; it didn’t look that big from where we were.  The building was 170 feet tall ( 17 stories).

Inside the VAB

It took us about 15 minutes to get there.  As we approached, one of the doors was open (I think he said they were 13 stories tall) and there was a space shuttle inside, sitting on its wheels.  It is the Endeavor, and it is the one they are decommissioning and taking to Los Angeles.  The guide said that we were going to be the first tour allowed into the VAB, but we had to be very careful and follow directions, staying inside the marked boundaries.  We got inside, and the building was “HUGE”.

 I can’t imagine what is must have been like as they were assembling these huge things, but all parts came in lying horizontally and they lifted them to the vertical.  Then they lifted them to the various heights they had to be to fit in their spots on the boosters.  In all, an amazing thing to think about.  We got fairly close to the Endeavor.  They had the nose section pulled apart and covered with plastic, as well as the windows, etc.  This was because they were still removing all the electronics that could be re-used, before the move to LA.

Endeavor

From there, we drove around some more, viewing the launch pad where most of the manned space flights have taken off from.  There are 2 main pads, but one has only been used for 2 flights, and the rest from the other.  We got fairly close to the main launch pad and could see how it worked as he gave us the narration.  Our road followed the road that the “crawler” followed as it moved from the VAB to the launch pad.  That road is 8 lanes wide with a grass strip down the middle and the crawler moves on both sides of the engineered road.  Strangely, the upper layer is a special kind of gravel that doesn’t compact too much and no matter what is done, no sparks come from the rocks (a good thing in this situation).

Next we were off to another viewing site where he explained the workings of a launch.  There is a big water tower fairly close to the launch pad.  They release this water on ignition and apparently it dampens the noise from the rockets.  I don’t know how that works, but he told us that where we were viewing from, the military had some equipment, and it got destroyed from the first lift-off.  They figured it was because of the noise vibrations, and that was the way they reduced it.

3-stage Rocket

Then it was to another location where our tour ended and we could wander around another building where there were a number of exhibits of a Saturn 3 rocket.  This was spectacular because the rocket was life-size horizontally, and we could see up close, what things looked like.  Almost everything was there from each stage of the rocket to the command module, the lunar module, and the vehicle used to transport the astronauts to the launch pad.  We also ate lunch there – paid more than $20 for a couple hamburgers and pops.

We spent a couple hours there, and then jumped on a shuttle bus that took us back to the main center.  Here again, we looked at more exhibits, and went to a 45 minute IMAX show on the Hubble telescope.  We had never seen 3D before and this was really interesting.  The gist of the movie was astronauts making repairs to the Hubble telescope and the things that NASA had to do to ensure the repairs were done properly.  Then, some very interesting views of far away galaxies and the birth and death of stars.  Very spectacular.

By then we were getting tired of all the walking and standing, and were just about ready to leave when we saw another area that we hadn’t been to.  This was one where they had about 10 different rockets standing.  I believe they were life size, so it was quite interesting.  There were a couple space capsules there so people could get an idea of what the astronauts had to go through.  They are very cramped and difficult to get into.  I didn’t try getting in, but we saw some younger folks who squeezed into the seat.

The smallest capsule was the one that the first American astronaut had been in when going into space.  It was only large enough for one, and with all the equipment in it, there was almost no room for him.  They didn’t know if he would be able to get back, or if he would be alive if he did.  It sounds like everyone just held their breath until they were sure he was alright.  This was after they had gone through many tests where the rockets had blown up or been blown up because they weren’t working properly – what a gamble.

Then we were done and headed back to the car.  Because we planned to head back to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow for the hockey game, we decided to go back to Melbourne and stay at the same hotel.  A better rate tonight because they have a Friday/Saturday night special.  We went for a drive and found their beach.  Both of us had a walk in the sand and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Did I mention that it was cooler today?  It was, and although still warm, the walk was quite comfortable.  What a beautiful sunset.