Disneyworld 2007 - Kennedy Space Center

Our third day was one of the funnest. Before leaving, Frontier Airlines informed us that our flight home on Tuesday was canceled to do an equipment change. So, we had to decide to go home a day early or stay an extra day. Gee, an extra day in Florida... Could we handle it? Since our Disney tickets were only for a 4 day admission, we needed to figure out what else to do. So, we decided to take a tour of the Kennedy Space Center, about 45 minutes east of Orlando.

We started out at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. Very interesting exhibits, including a lot of hands-on displays, including a command capsule to give you a feeling of how easy (or hard) they are to get in and out of. Some of the other exhibits included a sample console the ground technicians used, and a lots of historical information, especially about the Apollo 1 Mission that caught fire killing the astronauts inside. Very tragic. Of course there were other tributes to others who died, including the shuttle astronauts.

The next stop was at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center. This is actually a large complex made up of different buildings and purposes. The main building is to screen for security and information booths. There is a rocket garden, IMAX theater, gift shops, restaurants and food court, memorial, simulator, and full-size shuttle walk through. There were also a number of other educational and operational buildings, all open to the public.

We had chosen a "behind the scenes" tour which included launch pads, Apollo/Saturn V Center, and International Space Station Center (which we didn't make it to due to time constraints). Nevertheless, it was very interesting. Our tour guide, Bill did an excellent job. Our biggest complaint was that the tour was not accessible, forcing DeeAnn to stay on the bus, all after paying full price for the tour. Not fair!

I was fascinating to see the crawler that they loaded the shuttle and rockets onto and the road used to transport it all. They even use a rock that is designed to shatter on impact to reduce vibration in the crawler and the 8 screws holding the rockets and shuttle together.

We saw the building they use to put the shuttle together with the rockets, and several launch pads, including the pads used for all the moon landings during the Apollo era.

One of the things DeeAnn was not able to see was the Atlantic Ocean, just over the mound from one of our observation areas.

But we were shown the runway used when the shuttle lands in Florida. It was pointed out to us the runway is cupped about two feet from the middle to the side to ensure absolutely no water pools. We were actually parked in the area they marshall the recovery vehicles used when the shuttle lands.

At the end of our tour we were shown the room the ground technicians used to communicate with the capsules, saw the size of the Saturn V rocket, and the moon rover.

And all this was while STS-120 (Discovery) was up. It would land there, at the Center two days later. Another mission (STS-122) is scheduled for December 6th. It was interesting to learn that being anywhere within a mile of the launch pad would probably kill you, mostly from the sound of the rockets.