A Boyhood Dream Fulfilled: Space-Geek Tour of the USA

[Human]

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but today was another 10 out of 10 day. I keep asking myself why I deserve this – one dream fulfilled after another.

But first things first: the rocket launch was rescheduled to tomorrow. That works out better for me anyway. If I can catch the launch tomorrow, that really will be the icing on the cake.

The day started with the pleasing discovery that there is an actual, proper, breakfast buffet at my hotel. It’s not flash, but I’m more happy than you can imagine to report that it actually has juice! And some other things as well... Please don’t judge me – I’ve been eating “instant oatmeal” from a Styrofoam cup every day so far.






Today was a freezing cold Florida day. It was 5 degrees when I left the hotel and I found myself wearing clothes that I didn’t expect to be wearing until I reached Washington and NYC. I caught an Uber to Kennedy Space Center…






And found myself looking at a complex that is considerably larger than Space Center Houston. I was glad to have purchased a two-day ticket!

 

[Human]

The first stop was the Space Shuttle Atlantis building. The first part of the experience was a couple of short, but excellent, multimedia shows outlining the history of the Space Shuttle programme, then the wall literally opened up and I found myself face-to-face with a Space Shuttle!






A guide from KSC then spent about 15 minutes with us explaining the various features of the Shuttle – the tiles, the cargo bay and its doors which doubled as “radiators” to manage the heat distribution, the takeoffs and landings, and so on.

I found myself just as overwhelmed with emotion as I’d been in Mission Control at Houston three days ago. I’d expected that the Shuttle would be parked outdoors and that I’d be standing at a distance, looking up at it. Instead it was mounted literally right in front of me. If my arms were about 25 cm longer I’d have been able to touch it. And the fact that the Shuttle does, frankly, have quite a bit of noticeable wear and tear, reinforced to me the fact that it’s been on countless missions to the ISS, the Hubble Space Telescope, and so on. Once again, I really didn’t want to leave.

 

[Human]

After looking at a couple more displays, including one of the abovementioned Hubble Telescope, I went downstairs to have a look at the underside of Atlantis, as well as more displays. There was also a memorial for the dead Challenger and Columbia astronauts which was quite moving.

 

[Human]

And then it was time for my 11am bus tour of Cape Canaveral. I’d paid US$26.75 extra to upgrade to an “Explorer Tour” which was longer and with more stops – a no-brainer, given how far I’d come and how long I’d waited to be there!



This is Cape Canaveral from a distance.


First stop was the absolutely massive “Vehicle Assembly Building”. To put its size into perspective, each of the stars on the American Flag is actually two metres long.


Then we were briefly taken to the Media area, from which the media reports on significant launches.


We drove past the custom-built road along which spacecraft and rockets are transported to the launch pads. The road is not asphalt because asphalt isn’t strong enough and the transport vehicles would just sink.


Speaking of transport vehicles, here’s one.


Most of the launches these days are by SpaceX (I’ll let you know why, below), which rents launch pads from NASA for the bargain-basement price of US$100,000/month.


While we were on our way to Launch Pad 39, we came across this payload being taken to its launch site. Our tour guide looked it up and told us that inside the payload housing was a SpaceX Starlink satellite which is due to be launched on January 13. He told us that Elon Musk’s intention was to launch 30,000 Starlink satellites within the next decade. To put that into perspective: there are currently 21,000 satellites orbiting the Earth, of which 5,000 are currently functional and the rest is “space junk”.


We then stopped next to Launch Pad Complex 39A and B. These are historic sites – all the Apollo, and many of the Space Shuttle, missions launched from here. It also happens to be where the launch will take place from tomorrow.







We were standing in the exact area where cameras are set up to record significant (mostly crewed) launches. The footage of the Challenger explosion in 1986, which we’ve all seen, was taken from this spot.


Our next stop was the “Orbiter Access Control Arm” (aka. bridge) across which all the Apollo astronauts walked to enter their Command Modules for their Apollo missions. Neil Armstrong walked across this on his way to the Moon … and now so have I!

 

[Human]

The bus then dropped us of at the Apollo/Saturn V Center. After another excellent multimedia presentation, the doors opened to reveal a full Saturn V rocket. Yes, it was the second one I’d seen in 4 days, but as I’ve always said, you can never have too many Saturn V rockets! It was equally as awesome as the one in Houston, and equally as moving to see it.






I also saw an actual Lunar Module.



And the Apollo 14 Command Module.

 

[Human]

Then I headed back to KSC for an excellent, and moving, IMAX movie on the new James Webb Space Telescope and its amazing discoveries.


It was then 10 minutes before closing time. But I was pleasantly surprised to be let into the “Heroes and Legends” exhibition, which was also excellent.











By this time it was way past closing time, but no-one was moving me on, so I finished the day at the Astronaut Hall of Fame. These are the first astronauts inducted:



And these are the most recent inductees.


Needless to say it was another incredible, moving, emotional, wonderful day! And I’m back tomorrow to hopefully see an actual launch. I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying this; I’m so thankful that I can be here.

 

[Human]

At my hotel, there is one, and only one, dinner option that does not involve risking one’s life by sprinting across a busy freeway that has no pedestrian crossing. That option is the Cracker Barrel. So for the second night I went there for dinner, determined to eat more healthily than last night’s fat-filled feast. I began once again with a salad…



Had chicken soup for a main…


And there is no evidence whatsoever, photographic or otherwise, that I then ruined it all by having a huge slab of gooey chocolate cake smothered with icing and with a large scoop of ice-cream to the side. You can’t prove anything goodnight.

 

[Coathanger]

Our next stop was the “Orbiter Access Control Arm” (aka. bridge) across which all the Apollo astronauts walked to enter their Command Modules for their Apollo missions. Neil Armstrong walked across this on his way to the Moon … and now so have I!
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Wow, that’s pretty special that you get to walk across this piece of history!

Inspired by your trip report, I watched the excellent Netflix documentary “Apollo 13: Survival” which has a lot of archival footage including from Mission Control.

 

[Human]

Inspired by your trip report, I watched the excellent Netflix documentary “Apollo 13: Survival” which has a lot of archival footage including from Mission Control.

Thanks for letting me know about that documentary -- I hadn't heard about it. I'll watch it as soon as I get the chance.

To anyone who's interested, I’d highly recommend the documentary movies In the Shadow of the Moon (2007), Apollo 11 (2019), The Farthest – Voyager in Space (2017) and TV series When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (2008). And there are any number of dramatisations including the movie and TV series The Right Stuff (I preferred the movie to the TV series), First Man, Hidden Figures and, of course, Apollo 13. It’s not in the same category but I also love watching, and re-watching, The Martian!

There is, of course, no end of books on space travel either. My personal favourites are Apollo 8 by Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 13 by James Lovell and Jeffery Kluger, The Interstellar Age (on the Voyager probes) by Jim Bell and Chasing New Horizons by Alan Stern and David Grinspoon.

Our tour guide yesterday talked about movies. His favourite is Armageddon but he was at pains to point out that it's not scientifically accurate. He said that of all the movies on space and the space programme, Apollo 13 is by far the most accurate (although he said that astronaut Fred Haise, portrayed by Bill Paxton in the movie, got very angry at Bill Paxton when Paxton portrayed him at one point as chewing gum!). Our guide also said that The Martian is "very accurate"; given that it's fictional I presume he meant that it contains an accurate portrayal of the science surrounding a Mars mission.

Finally, The Planetary Society website (www.planetary.org) is heaven for hardcore space exploration geeks.