NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre

We had to wake up early the second morning because we had to pack the car with all our belongings. Our plan was to leave our house in Titusville in the morning spend the whole day at the NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre until basically closing time or till we had enough, then we would drive three hours south to Fort Lauderdale where we would stay for a week.

We got to the NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre nice and early. This time when we got there the gates were closed till opening time at 8am, it was only a short wait. At 8, they played the American national anthem and then we got to go in. Because it was our second day at NASA, we knew exactly what we wanted to do straight away. We went straight to the Atlantis building and went through the movie experience where they introduce the Atlantis and what it did. To be honest I kind of wish I did it the previous day because I really loved the way they introduced it. They showed a video that explained the process of building the space shuttles and the missions the Atlantis had been on. Then the curtain lifted, they said welcome home Atlantis, and we saw the space shuttle appear.

As we were making our way down, we could use their slide, which was designed at the steep angle at which the space shuttle lands back to earth. Once we were on the bottom floor again, we quickly went to the launch simulator ride because we knew when it started to get busy it would be hours of waiting, since it is one of the most popular rides in the park. Mind you all of this time we were basically the only ones in the building. The ride was fun, a little bit scary and we even got a really cool photos of us as astronauts which I’ll show below.

Then we walked over to the theatre to watch a talk where NASA shared what their current and future missions are and why they are doing them. They even showed us the stuff they are working on for a future mission to Mars!

After watching the information session, they let us know that the next event in the theatre was a talk by an astronaut. That astronaut happened to be Norman Thagard, he has been on five missions to space four American space shuttle flights and one mission aboard the Russian Mir Space Station. He has spent 140 days and 11 hours in space primarily during his mission aboard the Russian Mir space station in 1995 where he spent 115 days. The talk was very interesting; he talked about his life, how he became an astronaut and what it was like living and working in space and the audience got to ask some questions. At this stage we were hungry.

Once finishing lunch, we hurried to the Hall of Fame building where we got to see and learn about many of the Astronauts that have worked for NASA. We also got to see the Mercury Control Center. From this control center they managed the friendship 7 mission in 1962, which is known as the mission where astronaut John Glenn circled the Earth three times. He was the first American in orbit and set a record time a person was weightless, which was 4 hours, 48 minutes, 27 seconds.

At around three we went to do the Explore Bus Tour, through this we got to see the Gantry at LC-39, Vehicle Assembly Building, NASA Press Site and Apollo/Saturn V Center.

We were also able to see some of the launch pads from the bus. Our bus was able to stop in front of Launch Pad 39A and B which was very interesting to see from so close by. There was no rocket there though. We could see Elon Musk’s crane “the chop sticks” where they catch the rocket in, when a piece of it comes down on launch pad 39A.

Launch pad 39A is known for having hosted the Saturn V rocket that put people on the moon as well as having the first Space Shuttle launch. In 2014 NASA leased this launch pad to SpaceX for 20 years. The rocket launch we saw yesterday with craw 11 onboard lifted off from this launch pad.

Launch pad 39B is known for the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and is now undergoing renovations for the Artemis missions to the Moon.

There was also an opportunity to see the Vehicle Assembly Building. The building was completed in 1966 for the Apollo missions. To fulfil the goal President John F. Kennedy had of putting humans on the moon. To this day, it's the only structure where a rocket was built that delivered humans to walk on another world. The building also has the world’s largest American flag (63.7 metres tall and 33.5 metres wide) painted on the side of the building.

We got to see the Crawler Transporter, which is the vehicle they use to move the rocket to the launch pads. In is an important part of many of NASA’s programs, it first moved the Saturn V rocket in 1967 for the Apollo 4 mission.

When we reached the Apollo/Saturn V Center we walked in and saw Saturn V rocket mounted to the roof. The Saturn V rocket is the most successful rocket that ever flew crewed lunar missions. This rocket is enormous at 111 meters tall and weighs up to 2.8 million kilograms at launch. It stretched the whole length of the building. It was getting close to closing time when we got to the Apollo/Saturn V Center, so we had to walk around quite quickly to see everything. I think we could have easily spent another day and the NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre as there was just so much to see. Once we got told to leave because of closing time we got in the car and started the three-hour drive to Fort Lauderdale near Miami.

Below are some interesting photos I took from inside the Apollo/Saturn V Center.

We decided to get MacDonalds that night and my brother decided he was going to take buffalo sauce in his pocket in the car. We were all very tired, so me and my brother were trying to sleep in the back of a moving car and then all of sudden we hear a pop after which the car starts to smell like buffalo sauce. My brother accidentally sat on the buffalo sauce that was in his pocket. We had to make a quick stop at a place on the side of the road so he could wipe the sauce out of his pocket. An interesting end to a fantastic couple of days.

As I learned so much, I decided to make one more space blog which will be on the space shuttle programme.