Thursday July 7, 2011 KSC Florida

This was my first full day in Florida. Although I did get in touch with the person with my ticket to the launch, it took several calls to agree that I would just show up at about 1 AM at his hotel.

I got to the KSC Visitors Center later than I wanted (about 10 AM I think). The tickets for special tours were all sold out. I actually had to wait in line for about an hour before I got in. Things had changed quite a lot from when I was there in 1985. The place is run by a company for NASA now. There were some Star Trek displays around the Visitor area. However, for today none of that mattered. It was also very crowded, not surprisingly.

The Visitors Center was organized into 3 major locations - a tower to view the Shuttle Launch Pad (not used during actual launch), an indoor display of a Saturn V (and LEM) and other items from the 1960s and the main visitors complex where I started. Today I was mainly concerned with going to the other two sites.

Unfortunately, it was raining off and on all day. It made it hard to take good pictures out of the bus. I also left Mike's Pants in the car - hoping it would clear up later.

The tower was new to me. I could just make out the launch pad from the top level. Then the rain started getting heavy. I even have some pictures of the launch pad before the rain and then just a darker gray area after the rain got heavy. There was also a rocket engine on two of the levels (I don't remember what the engine was).

Next I went to the Saturn V exhibit. It was nice to see it inside. Last time I saw it was from a bus as we left the VAB area - outside exposed to the elements. It was in much better shape now. Plus, I could walk underneath it. That was fun. I took lots of pictures of each stage including some detail. There was also a LEM hanging from the roof and a see-thru model of the Saturn V to show what was inside. All of it very cool.

There was lots of other stuff, including an Apollo capsule. There were two different theaters in the building. The first was a recreation of the Apollo Launch control center with a countdown from about 5 minutes. They had network news clips showing as the countdown and launch happened as well as lights showing the different consoles when they were speaking (there were no people at the consoles). The other was a program about the mission, from a more cerebral view. It included a mock LEM landing on a stage and, later the ascent stage taking off (none of which I took pictures of).

I went back to the main visitors center and looked around. A major area outside the central area was a memorial wall which listed all of the astronauts killed on the job. This included those killed on missions (including X15) as well as those killed during training (mostly jet crashes).

Finally, I went on the shuttle launch simulator. They had a good setup to keep you entertained while you were in line. When you got in, you went to a holding area where they had more explanation of what to expect. Finally they let you into the simulator. I miscalculated on the amount of junk I had in my pockets. Right when I was lining up to go into the simulator I noticed the sign that listed all of the things you should not have (like a cell phone); it also explained all of the lockers outside the entrance. I ended up stuffing my hands in my pockets so nothing would fall out. I mostly succeeeded. The ride was fun - no falling, which I hate, but the weightless simulation was done by pointing our pod down. There was a nice view of the earth out of the top section of the simulator at the end.

It was getting late so I drove to the Astronauts Hall of Fame. This was set up seperately from the KSC Visitor's Center but then became part of it. They had a room with all of the recognized astronauts, including their different missions. There was also a Mercury capsule and a Gemini mockup. There was also this odd movie on a sphere aperatus that intrigued me. After looking around a while I figured out that there were four video projectors all perfectly lined up projecting onto the globe. The globe also appeared to be floating in the middle of the room. It was too dark to tell, but I'm pretty sure there were wires holding it up.

Both the Visitor's Center and the Hall of Fame were open until 7 or 8 PM. I left shortly before the Hall of Fame closed. It was still light out.

After that I went to have something to eat and rest at the hotel.