I went to Kennedy Space Center on New Year’s Day. Honestly, I did not really notice I was there when my dad drove the family van into the parking lot. I was taking a nap, expecting to be in New Jersey in 18 hours. Early in the vacation, my dad asked me and my three siblings where they wanted to go during the vacation and I mentioned KSC. New Years Day was the last day of the trip and we went to Universal Studios in the morning before heading out on the road. So I did not expect to be at KSC, but there I was. I was so excited, taking pictures whenever I could. I immediately send out a tweet
I'm at the Kennedy Space Center wooooot! http://myloc.me/2x8Tb
Now, I have to explain something. The people who I’ve connected with on twitter on the biggest space cadets in the world. So it was not surprising when @TaviGreiner retweeted that tweet
TaviGreiner Yay, Daniel! :D RT @AronSora: I'm at the Kennedy Space Center wooooot! http://myloc.me/2x8Tb
But, even the Space Tweeple, as they call themselves, do not compare to the space cadets at KSC. After my dad brought tickets, I was in heaven. The first thing we did was the Shuttle Experience.
NASA did a great job with this attraction. Every detail was there; nothing stood out as inaccurate with my inexperienced eye. It was a motion simulator ride, but it was epic. The motion simulator actually tilted to vertical for the launch and slowly tilted to horizontal just as the shuttle does during a launch. Once we where in orbit, the simulator tilted to about negative ten degrees to replicate zero gravity. The ride felt real. I swear, I felt negative and positive g’s. If this launch where real, we would have been in a special passenger container in the shuttle bay. They even had a scatic with the environmental control system labeled for our fictional pod.
Bolden gave commentary through the simulation and before hand in give an explanation of what the shuttle does during a launch. I found it humorous. But I am a geek, so most people might not see the humor.
After looking at some of the rockets on display, we boarded one of tour busses to see the launch pads.
We passed Pegasus with the external fuel tank on board. Pegasus is the barge which carries the external fuel tank. We saw the firing building, the shuttle processing building and the Vehicle Assembly Building. There where TVs on the bus with interviews with the people who worked in these building. We also saw this gigantic eagle's nest. We stopped at an observation tower for shuttle launches on the bottom floor, there were models of the various building in KSC and a movie about the shuttle preparation process.
Another bus took us to the Apollo complex. They had the original firing room from Apollo. They replayed the process with video and audio. Each station would light up when the person working at that station did said something. When the rocket went off, the windows vibrated; it seemed like the windows would break. It was sort of sad that they did this to the original firing room, but it would have ended up like the Manhattan Project room at Columbia University [storage] if they did not do this.
Finally we have a Saturn V rocket on display.
This thing
is flipping
huge.
I was shocked by the size of the rocket. This really put into perspective for me the energy required to go to the moon. Imagine what a Mars rocket would require. They also had a moon rock that you could touch, that was epic.
All in all, it was a fun trip. I was surprised by the number of people. I expected KSC to be a ghost town, but everything had a line. Every bus was full. Everyone there was really friendly too, even the bus drivers. Everyone sounded they like had a passion for space and I really felt at home there. Hopeful, I will get to go down again to see one of the last shuttle launches.
