Kennedy Space Center in photos; Part One
We’ve loved our visits to Kennedy Space Center and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, home to the tours that let you get an up close visit of our American space program. With such opportunities as visiting displays (Star Trek) to regular displays and interactive venues, food and shopping, the Rocket Garden, and soon, the Space Shuttle Atlantis, guests get the chance to learn, discover and enjoy a journey into space.
Here are just a few of our many photos with the wish that they inspire you to visit Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and enjoy a personal experience with space.
Enjoy Lunch with an Astronaut, then have your photo taken with him or her
following. Here Laura is with Dr. Scott Parazynski. Scott was on board with
John Glenn when he returned to space as well as other
missions performing a number of “space walks.”
Take the Guided Tour – a little more expensive -
and get up close in places the “regular” tour doesn’t go or
merely passes by. Here we are in front of the VAB while the
most current version of the guided tour takes you inside the VAB!
At present (at the time of this writing) the Guided Tour
includes the VAB – there is no known time-frame for how
long it will be included – as well as the Space Shuttle Endeavor -
again, no known time for how long a space shuttle orbiter
might be inside. If you can, take this tour ASAP for a better
shot at seeing both or at least getting inside the VAB.
Being inside the VAB with an orbiter gives you both a
real sense of just how small, yet cool, the orbiter is
while showing exactly how huge the VAB is!
This crawler is ready with for a rocket
for a future mission. Designed to be used at Launch Pad 39B,
that pad is set without a launch tower, brought out
instead on the crawler with whatever rocket, much as they
did during the Apollo days.
Guided Tours get you up close with the launch pads, such as 39A
where the other buildings include the fuel and water used at launch time.
The Apollo-Mercury building lets you explore
these two vital programs in space flight, including
who they were, where they went, and some artifacts that
were used.
Walk below a real rocket – fire power removed – to feel
just how huge and impressive these were. These were the
types used to launch men such at Jim Lovell and Apollo 13 into space,
and show the shear size needed to get them there.
Touch a piece of space rock and feel what so few ever will really get the chance to do.
See Jim Lovell’s space suit – the real one is
actually off display at this time – and imagine
him fighting to bring he and his crew home.
Cross the crawler tracks leading from the VAB to the launch pads.
The actual roadways used to carry the ships to their pads
in preparation for liftoff.
Its amazing to see how wide and big they really are.
Did you know that the strips on the flag
on the side of the VAB are big enough a bus
can ride them? Well, if you could get a bus to
drive up the side of a building!
THAT’S how big this building is!
Inside the VAB you get a REAL feel for how big and powerful the
work in this building is – and how big and powerful
the tools need to be, such as this hook that rises
all the way to the top allowing them to build rockets here.
Remember that Lunch with an Astronaut?
On this day my guest co-host Mike and I were
invited to interview Dr. Scott Parazynski,
sharing his stories, and learning a little
about this room…
I spotted this beam next to us – its signed by astronauts
from the corps, including many you’ve heard of. This
interesting piece of history sits in a simple office,
not open to the public, but a monument
to the men & women who’ve risked it all.
Scott points to his name, I’m not sure about Mike, and I’m
pointing to Story Musgrave.
This portion of the KSCVC is no longer there, removed
in preparation of the new building being built
that will house the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Whether you can make the astronaut lunch or not, stop
by the store off the KSCVC forecourt to do some
shopping and get an autograph. Times are posted inside the store.
The rocket garden lets you walk among the ships that
carried men, women and more into space.
The forecourt leads you to the shopping, food, Rocket Garden,
displays and interactive experiences.
The sun may have set on the Space Shuttle Program, but
NASA, Kennedy Space Center, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex,
and the men and women who reach to the stars will continue well into the future.
