Kennedy Space Center: Rocket Garden & Bus Tour

Merritt Island, September 2016

This was a very much unexpected visit to Florida during one of my holiday periods for which I didn't plan anything but enjoy the comfort and peacefulness of my home. But a friend of mine suggested to go to Orlando and visit the Kennedy Space Center. His idea was to spend just two nights in Florida. I complained and fought that idea... I was not going to cross the Atlantic just to spend only a whole day in Florida - that was my day-to-day reality at work. So a couple of days more were added with the initial purpose of using them for sunbathing.

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Lisboa - Miami

The outbound flight was operated by the Airbus A330-223 with tail number CS-TOH, with the Star Alliance livery. This was an old aircraft, acquired second-hand from Austrian Airlines. Next to our aircraft was the Airbus A330-202 with special titles "#OlympicEmbrace/Together we are stronger" for the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics.

The entertainment system of this aircraft (now phased-out) was still a VHS based one, with movies running on a loop.

But our ex-Austrian A330s were the only ones to the date having a special feature: a camera installed in the landing gear providing interesting views during take-off and landing (I can't remember exactly but I think it was in the nose landing gear). But the camera's resolution was not that spectacular.

During the last minutes of our approach, while watching the camera view, I thought we were still pointing to the ocean and waiting to turn back to the final approach because the blurry and grey image didn't show any particular feature on the ground. But I was very wrong, the airport was just in front of us! A massive thunderstorm was just hovering over the airport of Miami! We were the last aircraft to land, as soon as we vacated the runway, the airport operations were shutdown for the safety of every ramp agent. We were stuck in the taxiway for 45 minutes with one engine running while the aircraft was periodically shaken by strong lightening and heavy rain showers. When everything cleared we had to wait a few more minutes because our stand was a mess with lots of ramp equipment that was displaced during the storm.

First night we slept at Fort Lauderdale and the next day we were on the road northbound via I-95 route.

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Rocket Garden

Kennedy Space Center's Visitor Complex is home to the Space Shuttle "Atlantis", its main highlight. However I will cover it on a next post.

The first open space you see after passing the entrance of the complex is the Rocket Garden, a display of rockets. All the programs that contributed to the epic journey to the Moon are represented in this "garden" - Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.

The rocket above displayed on the horizontal is Saturn IB, from the Apollo program.

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KSC Bus Tour

Our tickets included a bus tour to the Kennedy Space Center, so we could see, from distance, the main launch platforms.

First, a glimpse on SpaceX's 39A hangar...

Apollo Program & Space Shuttle launches and respective patches...

Vehicle Assembly Building...

Vision of space by John F Kennedy...

In 2016, the first launch was scheduled for 2018, but Artemis I was only launched in November, 2022!

The launch abort system of the SLS:

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Touch the Moon

Inside the Apollo/Saturn V Center, you can touch an actual Moon rock:

But before entering the Saturn V complex, we can feel the awe of being inside the Firing Room of the Apollo 8 mission, the first crewd mission that went to the Moon (but didn't land on it) - an immersive experience with lots of shaking!

To be continued...