Got the day off from Disney for good behaviour, but not going to waste it, so I've booked myself on an excursion to the 'Kennedy Space Centre'. The KSC is 60 minutes east of Orlando which makes it tough to get to without a car and impossible by public transport. Luckily a local coach firm do excursions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for $20. It means an 8.15 start.
The journey across this part of Florida is very pleasant, once you get out of the tourist whirl that is Kissimmee and Orlando. It's very green, with plenty of palm trees. It is mainly marshland and a really nice climate. I'd take this place any day over dried out Spain, with it's crummy climate, although every other person here speaks Spanish.
The KSC is on an island and accessed via a causeway over the Banana River. The island is massive and the majority of it is a conservation area, with over 5000 alligators roaming free, providing extra security. There are also colonies of Manatees and Eagles.
For just under $30 you get entry into the vistor complex. You can pay extra for an up close tour. That includes a trip to the 'Astronaut Hall of Fame' which we have no way of getting to. The first thing I did on the standard tour was take the bus out to the restricted areas, where you get to see the massive 'Vehicular Assembly Building'. The VAB is where the 'Saturn V' rockets and space shuttles are assembled and prepared, prior to transportation out to the launch pads. The building stands at 500 odd feet tall and can fit the Statue of Liberty in. Apparently when it was first built it was so tall that clouds used to form at the top, so they had to fit dehumidifiers. It fair to say it's a big building.
You don't stop at the VAB, it's just a building you pass on the way to the observation tower. Here you are treated to a video about the assembly of the shuttle, the transportation to the launch pad (which can take 10 hours to go 2 miles) and the launch itself. You can also climb the tower to view the different launch pads. No launches are planned until a satelitte launch in December, with the next shuttle launch planned for September 2004. They seem pretty confident that they have discovered what happened to Colombia in February and reckon to have resolved the problem.
The next stop on the tour is the Saturn V centre. For those who don't know this is the rocket that took man to the moon. The first show in the centre is a reenactment of a launch from mission control complete with rattling windows. You then enter the main centre and see one of the massive rockets. They also have moon buggies, capsules and moon rocks for you to look at. Then they have a show that reenacts the moon landing and news clips from the time. Yet again I find myself being amazed by something that I have always taken for granted. Space flight and moon landings were thought to be impossible just a few years before I was born.
After this I went back to the visitor complex where you can look round a full sized space shuttle and meet an astronaut. I walked around the rocket garden which has various rockets from the different space programs. I'd have liked to have seen the Saturn V in there too.
Included in the ticket are 2 Imax shows. I'd already seen one of them, but the other 'The Dream is Alive' was very good, although it looked quite dated, was not in 3D and not dissimilar to 'Space Station 3D'. I was disappointed that the memorial to the people who have given there lives for space exploration was closed, I think they are adding Colombia to it. In all it was a very full and informative day.
2 small gripes though. Firstly the refreshments were extremely expensive. If I were you I'd bring a picnic. Secondly why do parents bring kids that are to young to understand whats going on.
