March 20, 2009 - Today we head south to Titusville once again, only this time to go to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. What a place to spend the day. So much to see and so much to marvel at. The first thing you see as you get near is the Rocket Garden. There are several rockets on display. We had free admission to the Space Center through the Daytona Beach KOA. Not a bad perk as standard admission is $38.00 each. We had been here years ago but there were many changes and many new exhibitions that were new to us. There were two things we wanted to do today, first the bus tour and the Space Shuttle Experience Ride. First the bus tour. It lasted about 3 hours and there were three stops - the first being the Observation Gantry. This gantry is where the shuttle we watched the last 4 times was launched from. It is massive. And there are two of them!! One of the buildings we saw as we went past was where the shuttle is actually mounted to the fuel tank and rockets and then lifted by crane into a verticle position onto the "crawler". The crawler with the shuttle attached comes out of the gray doors on the building on the left. This is a huge building and the doors are 16 stories high. To the right is a replica of the shuttle fuel tanks with the rockets attached. This is the view we have across the river waiting for the launch to happen.

The second stop on the bus tour was the Apollo Saturn V Center. This is the program that put man on the moon. Below are a couple of pictures of the rocket, booster, command module.

Rocket Engines

Command Module

The third stop was the International Space Center Display. They have the actual "rooms" on display and you can walk through them. It is quite interesting as you can see how they live. There is a bathroom that is very unique, and on display is the wardrobe where they sleep and several other compartments where they set up their experiments - plant life, human, and animal.

Bathroom Shower

Wardrobe - they snap themselves into the gray wrap and "hang" in space to sleep.

After the bus tour we went to the Space Shuttle Experience. What a ride. I kept my eyes closed most of the time because the shaking was so great during "lift off" that I needed to try to keep myself calm so my heart wouldn't do one of its' flippy things and send me into A-Fib. It really does give you a feeling of lifting off, rotating, and becoming air born. Once into space the top opens up and you see earth and stars and it is incredible. Not as good as the real thing, but close. I would do it again, only I would keep my eyes open the next time!!

We finished the day at the IMAX 3D movie "Space Station". Great movie, and very informative about how they live and work in outer space.

The shuttle and the fuel tank and rocket boosters - incredible!!

We are going back on Saturday to visit the Astranauts Hall of Fame. That will be the first stop on our way south to visit with friends.