Blogging from A to Z — the letter U

Today’s word is “universe”.  I am fascinated by the thought of  outer space.  

Back in October 2016, we visited the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. 

You can tell where you are even from the parking lot:

Admission was expensive, but included a bus tour of the campus as well as all the major exhibits.  We paid an additional fee for a guided bus tour, which includes additional stops.  Our tour guide, John, gave us lots of insights into the comings and goings at Kennedy Space Center, as well as the projects that NASA and private contractors are working on for 2018.  We're going back to the moon!  And that will be the first step in going to Mars.

Vehicle Assembly Building, as viewed from  the bus:





Launch pad:

And up close:

 

 

 

 

 

The various missions:

The bus tour ends at the Apollo-Saturn V building, where it's 1968 again.  

One of the best displays in this building has you seated in the control room during a rocket launch.  It includes news footage of the launch as well as activities you'd find in the control room during countdown.

You'll see the rockets, the lunar module, suits worn by the Apollo astronauts.  You can even touch a moon rock.  

We grabbed a couple of burgers here, then took the bus back to the main complex.


The bus drops you off at the entrance to the building that houses the Atlantis Space Shuttle, the largest exhibit in the main complex.  Outside the building you will see a full-scale model of the rockets that were used to launch the shuttles.  Inside you will find Atlantis, as well as numerous exhibits explaining the shuttle program, and saluting the men and women who flew the shuttles. There's even a simulator that allows you to experience a rocket launch.  

The rockets:

Atlantis:

We'd seen the shuttle prototype, Enterprise, at the Intrepid Museum in NYC, but that display did not allow us to see inside the space craft.  This was fascinating.

Next we walked to the back of the complex to see the memorial:

We realized, at that point, that we'd spent the entire day at the space center, and yet had not seen all of th amazing exhibits they offer.

We paid a visit to the rocket garden on our way out.

I loved my visit there.