Kodak Moments

Kennedy Space Center

Enterance to KSC. I nearly cried with excitement and emtion of finally being here.
The Rocket Garden. No, these are not replicas...it's the real deal baby!
Oh darn! The replica shuttle was closed for repair. Also there is a new simulator being built right now, but will not open until Summer next year. In the words of Arnie...I'll be back!
This is the actual steel service arm that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins of Apollo 11 walked across to board the Saturn V rocket and command module that made history and took the first humans to the moon.
Closing my eyes as I walked across this short orange truss, I imagined I was 30 stories off the ground wearing an equally bright orange suit. Was it windy? Would I have been rushed? Could I find my family waving and shouting in the masses of people below? Onto the white room. Good-Bye Planet Earth. I'm going to go make history now.
This could have been me! Not that I'm unhappy with the way my life has gone...I'm happy with who I have become.
Remembering the brave explorerers of our time. I spent a lot of time here reading about each fallen astronaut.
Me sitting on a mock EVA. Later I found a real one, but didn't get a shot at it.
This is the Vehicle Assembly Building. It's HUGE. Just one of those stripes on the flag is as wide as a car lane and a single star is 6ft tip to tip. It's the third largest building in the country and bigger than the pentagon. Now, that is BIG!
Neil Armstrong's spacesuit. Just think...those were the FIRST moonboots! Cool.
One corner of the Crawler up close
The Crawler. This is the vehicle that transports the Shuttle to the launch pad. It tops out at a whopping speed 0.9 mph and takes a crew of 25 persons to operate. It's 4 massive tank like wheels pulverize the bed of river rock upon which it travels.
Me in front of Launch Pad 39B, this is the one Atlantis took off from a little over a week ago. We did drive up closer.
a few rows of the real stations used to launch Apollo missions. The presentation included a simulated room shaking of liftoff.
A rare look at Pegasus (NASA's floating barge that transports the big orange external fuel tank) with it's door open. Look, the fuel tank for the next mission is already here! They can't reuse these because their volicity carries them too far into the atmosphere and they burn up. However, the 2 solid rocket boosters are retrieved from the ocean and can be reused up to 20 times!
Saturn V complex
the real return module used for Apollo 13.

posted by Kathy @ 1:05 PM