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Yesterday (Sunday)I drove down from Savannah, and it was about 4:00 in the afternoon by the time I got to the Kennedy Space Center. I thought I'd buy my ticket for tomorrow and skip the lines in the morning, but the ticket was good for two days so I went on in. This place is like Disneyland with rockets! I was amazed at how small the booster was for the Gemini capsule, above.
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There were two IMAX theatres, with different shows, lectures, displays, and tours. Then you get on a bus and go to another area. This is from an observation tower out near the shuttle launch site: the road the crawler carries the shuttle from the Vehicle Assembly Building (in the distance) to the launch pad. The VAB is the 2nd largest building in the world. 10 football fields would fit on the top of the building.
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The the bus takes you to the Apollo section, with more movies, displays, etc. This is one of the actual Saturn V boosters that was built but (obviously) never used. Your tax dollars at work! But at least we have a really cool rocket to look at!
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Not that I'm against spending money on NASA. We could probably go to Mars on the cost of one nuclear submarine. I was really struck by the significance of humanity being able to do this, especially now that we're beginning to work together on an INTERNATIONAL Space Station. That may be more important than the science.
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I was also surprised by how big the shuttle was... although there's no comparison with the Saturn V, it's several times bigger than that little Gemini rocket. I thought it was strange that they made very little mention of the Columbia accident, although memorials to the Challenger crew are all over the place. I guess it's still too soon.
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One of the last things I did was go to a lecture on what the ISS (Space Station) crew was working on today. Afterwards I talked with the woman giving the demonstration. I could tell she was tear-ing up when she talked about the Columbia. There are only 3 shuttles left. They're not building more, and no new prototype is close to taking its place.
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