Touring The Kennedy Space Center

As you ride along Rt. 405 on the flat plains of Merritt Island, a barrier island next to the Atlantic Ocean , a full size replica of the Space Shuttle Explorer, with its twin solid rocket boosters and orange-colored external fuel tank, let you know you've arrive at The Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex. Ticket lines, at the center, can be slow. It’s advisable to purchase tickets at your hotel, resort or through Triple A before you go and you might even get a discount. If you're planning on spending a lot of time there, buy the Maximum Access Admission MAA ticket ($52 for adults). It includes two days entrance to the midway, a special guided tour through the restricted areas and entrance to the Astronauts Hall Of Fame in Titusville. Be sure to have your ticket validated before you leave the complex on day one. Getting through security is fairly simple unless there's a rocket launch scheduled for that day. In any case, arrive early.

Once inside, refer to your schedule and plan your day, before you do anything else, or you'll miss something. Don't miss your scheduled bus tour to the restricted area. If you have any problems, there are many uniformed guides ready and willing to help. Robot Scouts was a great show for both kids and adults. It's about robots in general and robots in space. Robotix produced it and it impressed me so much I have been buying their products ever since. I bought my first two in the Space Shop at the center.

An astronaut who had lived in the earth orbiting US Space Station Skylab, once for 84 days, Major Bill Pogue, gave a great talk, signed his books and answered our questions at The Astronaut Encounter.

Don't miss the two film presentations at the IMAX theaters. Only MAA ticket holders see both. To hear about space contributions to modern medicine and living, visit The Launch Status Center. Watch for the space person who is suited up and ready to venture around the outside of a space station in orbit. Kids can get right into the act in The New Millennium Theatre. If the little ones are getting restless take them to the play dome next to the very visible garden of famous historic space rockets.

The expansiveness of space exploration in today's world becomes apparent on the bus tour. With the narrated MAA tour ticket you will visit the International Space Station Center and go near the Vehicle Assembly Building (it’s so big, you'll think you’re next to it when you're five miles away). You'll see the crawler and find out how it brings the space vehicles to the launch pad. You'll see the launch pads up close and find out how the rockets are fueled before takeoff. The bus goes right next to the special three mile run way for returning space shuttles and after that you'll end up at The Saturn V Center.

For those of us who clung to the television on July 16, 1969, the Cape Canaveral Control Center was a familiar site. We watched television hour after hour as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin brought their spacecraft down safely and landed on the moon. During the entire event the interaction at the control center was constantly being televised. Finally Neil Armstrong said, "The Eagle has landed." When we entered the Apollo/Saturn V Center, we were behind a glass wall looking in at that very control center. Then the doors opened and we were ushered into a massive hall. An enormous Apollo/Saturn Rocket was displayed horizontally and off the floor so we could walk under it and view it. It was 363 feet in length and weighed 6,200,000 pounds. Several missions had been aborted so that particular rocket never left the ground but is like the one that flew to the moon.

The first thing we saw was the five enormous F-1engines at the base of stage one. It was responsible for lifting the entire 3,000-ton fueled rocket off the ground, a thrust requiring 7,500,000 pounds. It needed 4,400,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and kerosene stored in the huge tank over the engines to perform that task. Once ignited it would burn for two and a half minutes and then stage one would drop off.

Stage two would then ignite, adding another 1,000,000 pounds of thrust with its five engines. They are visible because the three stages are displayed with a division between each one. Stage two would carry 930,000 pounds of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for fuel.

Stage two would drop off and stage three's one engine would ignite. It had a thrust of 200,000 pounds using 2,300,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen and would cause that part of the rocket to gain the speed of 25,000 miles and hour that would be needed to go to the moon. Stage three would drop off leaving only the lunar package that would reach the moon.

The Lunar Theater at the far end of the building showed a movie about the lunar landings. It was about two in the afternoon and there was a snack bar in the Apollo/Saturn V Center so we stopped for lunch. It was expensive and not that good. It would have been a good idea to bring a lunch. There is a souvenir shop inside that building, also. The Space Shop at the midway had many of the same items and more.

From a cruise ship, three miles out at sea, the Vehicle Assembly Building(VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is visible, on a clear day. It can be seen from anywhere along Rt. 1 in Titusville. It's credited with being the biggest building in the world. It covers eight acres and is 525 feet high. On our bus tour of the grounds at KSC we saw it up close. A wide straight roadway led directly to it. Our guide, Monica, ask us how far away we thought it was. Guesses from tourists on the bus ranged from a half-mile to a full mile. We were shocked when she said five miles.

Parts for the space vehicles are so enormous they arrive at KSC in many pieces. Some are so big they must be floated up the river on a barge. Once there, they are brought to the VAB where they are assembled, one by one, into a massive spacecraft. The huge size of the vehicles are required for tanks that hold millions of gallons of fuel needed for blasting off the ground and going into orbit around the earth. Transporting a heavy payload would add to fuel consumption as well.

To allow the space vehicle to be moved to a launching pad after being assembled, it must be built on a Mobile Launcher Platform called the crawler. Big doors open at the bottom of the VAB and the crawler is moved into place. It weighs 2,727 tons and can adjust and balance the space vehicle when it climbs up to the launching pad. To avoid sudden jolts, it moves at .91 miles an hour. The doors for the crawler were open when our tour bus past by.

A 44 story umbilical tower is installed next to the space vehicle while it is being assembled. Its many arms hold the vehicle in place. When it is finally ready, a door as big as the side of the building opens up and allows the crawler with the umbilical tower and the finished space vehicle to all move together out of the building and on toward the launching pad. A specially made gravel road goes from the VAB to the launching pads.

Already orbiting the earth is a complex of many different modules and other equipment connected together to facilitate space travel for sixteen nations. In a few years we will see this space station orbiting because it will be so big. It is called The International Space Station, ISS. Monica, our guide, was a German girl who grew up in Brazil. She spoke English with a strong accent. My thinking took on a new dimension when she warned us not to leave the group for security reasons.

Inside the building, she took us through several modules. They were mockups of the real ones, or the real ones brought back to be reloaded. A module has to be round and shape like a can of tomato paste. It will be brought to the space station inside a space shuttle as the payload so its size has to be compatible. We walked through the hollow middle of the modules. Clean white drawers completely covered the inside. Some drawers had glass fronts with green leafy things growing in them.

We passed the modules Leonardo and Raffaello, wrapped in plastic to keep them clean. They would be loaded with supplies and sent to ISS. They will provide the astronauts with food, clothing, toiletries and equipment. Great strides have been made in medicine due to space experiments. Since May 19, 2000 a human crew has been living in the ISS. The crew is alternated at intervals. One module had a shower and toilet. The shower was round. When water came out it formed balls like bubbles and floated because there was no gravity in space. The astronauts found it easier to clean with baby wipes.

Although the ISS includes 16 nations, the main contributions have been from the United States and Russia but they couldn't have done it without the extraordinary robotic Canadian arm. In March 2004, at about the same time we were at the Kennedy Space Center, President Bush gave a long announcement about the future plans of the ISS. He wants all our efforts to go into building it. Future space exploration would be less dangerous and expensive if launched from the ISS or the moon. Only 10 more shuttle launches are planned. Once the ISS is complete, it will be the size of two football fields combined.

The best place to observe a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral is at Jetty Park at Cape Canaveral. We spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center to learn about and then watch the launch scheduled for that evening. Our guide at the space center recommended watching from Jetty Park because it was in view of the launching pads at Cape Canaveral. We also found out there is a difference between the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. The confusion started when the name Cape Canaveral was changed to Cape Kennedy. The locals wanted it changed back. To appease the situation the area was split into two different sections. The tourist section and government sponsored space exploration area, more to the west on Merritt Island, is known as the Kennedy Space Center. The commercial space development section is known as Cape Canaveral, and is more to the east and next to the ocean. Jetty Park is on the south side of the Canaveral Canal and the launching site called Cape Canaveral is north of it.

Located next to the ocean side entrance to the canal is a jetty. In front of it is a watching bridge built especially for observing rocket launches. Watching from the beach is excellent also. We found a perch on a watching platform built into a bridge structure crossing over a sand dune. We would have preferred the bridge near the canal but we arrived when the park was almost full and the best viewing spots were already taken.

Jetty Park is a RV camp. There is a $5 charge to enter the park with a car, more if you're bringing in an RV. It’s a beautiful place to camp. The sites for the campers among the tropical landscape near the ocean and beach make it ideal. Although packed to full capacity during a launch, the parking lot and beach were almost empty on an ordinary day. Miles of beach in that area are covered with white powdery sand. People come in for the day to use the beach or fish off the jetty. There's a snack bar, bait and tackle shop, changing rooms and toilets and a small grocery store in the RV camping area. There's also a big playground for children. We came back on a non-launching day because we wanted to picnic at the weather worn tables next to the canal but it was very windy.

It's pleasant to sit at the picnic tables and watch the enormous luxury cruise ships, fishing fleets and casino boats go up and down the canal. Cape Canaveral has become an important port in recent years for cruise ships. On the other side of the canal is a waterway leading to the launching area at Cape Canaveral. Equipment, too big to be brought in any other way, is shipped in by barge on that waterway.