Orlando, day 5
Time for something completely different! We'd spent three and a half days absorbing all the Disney parks, and although we hadn't seen everything, or even hit every park (there were a couple of water parks we skipped), that experience was sufficient, or that was the way we'd planned it beforehand. Normally, when I do amusement parks, I do them for just one day and then go home, so I really wasn't sure what a solid week of amusement parks would be like. Fortunately, the rest of the group had decided the same thing during the planning phase, and we'd planned this day to be a break, during which we'd visit the Kennedy Space Center. The adults (including me) were pretty excited about this in advance, and we got even more excited when it became clear that the shuttle Atlantis would be on the launch pad during our visit. Yeah, it would have been best to see an actual launch, but since Atlantis is going to be the last shuttle launch ever, getting tickets to see the launch would have been very unlikely, so we settled for seeing it on the pad.
Important note that we had hammered into our heads repeatedly: Cape Canaveral is an air force base. It launched most of the space program's early rockets, and continues to be the launch site for unmanned rockets. The Kennedy Space Center is a NASA facility, sits next to Cape Canaveral AFB, and has been the launch site for all manned launches since the mid-60s, including the Apollo Program and the shuttles. We visited the Kennedy Space Center (or KSC, since NASA loves their abbreviations), but did not (quite) visit Cape Canaveral.
The drive out to the cape is about an hour from Orlando, mostly through swamp, so that was pretty boring, but I'll say this for it...that's a very straight road. The KSC has its own visitor's center, pretty much laid out like a science museum. It's kind of a shame that you don't get to see much of the real thing, sort of like when you visit the Hershey Chocolate Factory and find out that the "factory tour" doesn't involve actually entering the factory, but given the number of people who want a look at the rockets, and the secure nature of what's going on, it makes sense to keep the tourists isolated. So what you get at the visitor's center is more or less a science museum, but with a bit extra.
One thing they've got is a...well, I want to call it a "full-size walk-through space shuttle," but that's not quite right. It's a full-sized mock shuttle just sitting there on the concrete, true, but you don't so much walk "through" as you walk into a plexiglass box stuck between the cargo bay and the cockpit. Because -- and this is the first lesson -- the shuttle isn't all that big, comparatively speaking. Sure, it looks big when you see it, but the orbiter is mostly cargo bay...or empty space, in other words. The cockpit is interesting, what you can see of it from inside the box, but it looks awfully small for seven people to hang out in for a couple of weeks. More room than the Apollo capsules, to be sure, but I can see why they're always so thrilled when they get to the space station. There's also a life-size mock-up of the external fuel tank and booster rockets nearby, so you don't forget about those. (The other thing they kept hammering into us is that the bit that looks like a plane is just the "orbiter." You need the orbiter, the external fuel tank, and the boosters to make up a "shuttle.")
We paid a bit extra to take a two-hour bus tour that takes you around the whole site, but that's the closest you can get to the actual launch pads where the shuttles sit. (Two of them, 39A and 39B, but only 39A has been launching shuttles for the past few years. They seem to be converting 39B for something else.) The bus does take you out near to the border with Cape Canaveral, and they let you out for a bit so you can see the facilities across the water, which are now being leased to private space companies like Space-X. My favorite bit from that stop was when my father-in-law pointed to some previously unmentioned buildings and asked what they were for, and the tour guide gave a completely deadpan "I can't comment on that." I mean, nice FBI-worthy response, but you're a tour guide; you could at least say "We don't know" or "I'm not allowed to say anything about those" or something a bit more human.
In any event, we made it out to the launch pads, or at least, within less than a mile of pad 39A, where we got as close a look at the shuttle as anybody without clearance is likely to. The whole thing stood up on end like that is impressive. Slightly unfortunately, you can't see the orbiter when it's on the pad like that, partially because the orbiter faces away from the designated viewing area, but also because the orbiter is all wrapped up in gantry for most of the time it sits on the pad, which is a good thing, because it's out there for weeks. Still, very dramatic, especially knowing that we'll never get another chance to see it like that.
Other highlights of the "enhanced" tour were a close up look at the "crawler" that transports the shuttle to the pad, and the path it runs on, and the vehicle assembly building, or VAB (told you they like their abbreviations). The VAB is a truly huge building...a fact that's difficult to appreciate because there's pretty much nothing else around to give a sense of scale. However, one of the more impressive facts is that the VAB was built for assembling Saturn V rockets -- so when they assemble a shuttle in there, they only need about half the height of the building. As I mentioned, the shuttle is comparatively small. So why is the VAB so far from the pad that they need the crawler? Because the vibrations caused by the launch would damage a shuttle that was parked any closer than that. During one of the videos we saw, they explained that at X meters from the pad, the sound alone will kill you; at Y meters, the sound won't, but the shock wave will kill you; and at Z meters...well, the launch won't kill you, but the alligators might, because launches get them kind of riled up.
At the end of the tour, the bus deposited us in a building we hadn't seen before, elsewhere in the complex, which is entirely dedicated to the Apollo program. There's a complete reconstruction of the launch center from the Apollo 8 mission, with a whole movie about it, which seems slightly odd if you don't know the history of Apollo. Apollo 1, of course, was a disaster in which three astronauts died on the launch pad. As a result, the Apollo program was redesigned from the ground up, and resulted in the creation of the Saturn V, among many other improvements. Apollo 2 through 7 were unmanned, so Apollo 8, as the first manned mission since the disaster, was a big deal, both in terms of the science, and for the national spirit. So that's why it rates such a big commemoration at the Space Center. Best of all, after you've seen everything else, you're funneled into a truly huge room with a complete Saturn V lying on its side, separated into stages so you can see all of it. The films frequently refer to it as "the most complicated machine ever built," and I believe it.
This trip also let us experience a typical Florida happening that we hadn't seen yet -- the severe afternoon thunderstorm. After we got back from the tour, most of the adults went to see an IMAX about the space station, but Sparky declined on the grounds that he and I had already seen it at the Franklin Institute (true, although I don't know if that's the whole reason). So we wandered around looking at the other exhibits until the IMAX let out. The visitor's center is made of a bunch of different buildings that aren't connected, so you have to walk outside to get from one exhibit to the next. We thought we might sit down for a bit at a picnic table with an umbrella, but a staff member came along tying up the umbrellas just as we got there. He'd heard there was going to be a storm, and he was battening down the hatches. So I checked out the radar on my phone, but that was quickly unnecessary, as the wind picked up sharply, some ominous black clouds rolled in, and announcements started coming over the loudspeaker advising people to go inside, away from all the standing rockets. So once the IMAX let out, we left rather quickly before the rain proper could start, and just barely made it. It was awfully heavy, and the wind was fierce, but I got the impression that it wasn't anything too unusual for Florida, which after all deals with hurricanes on a regular basis. When we got back to the hotel, I saw a report on the TV that the "rainy season" had started, and they implied that the second week of June was rather late for it to get going. So from that point on, I noticed the humidity much more than previously, and the afternoon thunderstorm became a regular feature of our trip.
Important note that we had hammered into our heads repeatedly: Cape Canaveral is an air force base. It launched most of the space program's early rockets, and continues to be the launch site for unmanned rockets. The Kennedy Space Center is a NASA facility, sits next to Cape Canaveral AFB, and has been the launch site for all manned launches since the mid-60s, including the Apollo Program and the shuttles. We visited the Kennedy Space Center (or KSC, since NASA loves their abbreviations), but did not (quite) visit Cape Canaveral.
The drive out to the cape is about an hour from Orlando, mostly through swamp, so that was pretty boring, but I'll say this for it...that's a very straight road. The KSC has its own visitor's center, pretty much laid out like a science museum. It's kind of a shame that you don't get to see much of the real thing, sort of like when you visit the Hershey Chocolate Factory and find out that the "factory tour" doesn't involve actually entering the factory, but given the number of people who want a look at the rockets, and the secure nature of what's going on, it makes sense to keep the tourists isolated. So what you get at the visitor's center is more or less a science museum, but with a bit extra.
One thing they've got is a...well, I want to call it a "full-size walk-through space shuttle," but that's not quite right. It's a full-sized mock shuttle just sitting there on the concrete, true, but you don't so much walk "through" as you walk into a plexiglass box stuck between the cargo bay and the cockpit. Because -- and this is the first lesson -- the shuttle isn't all that big, comparatively speaking. Sure, it looks big when you see it, but the orbiter is mostly cargo bay...or empty space, in other words. The cockpit is interesting, what you can see of it from inside the box, but it looks awfully small for seven people to hang out in for a couple of weeks. More room than the Apollo capsules, to be sure, but I can see why they're always so thrilled when they get to the space station. There's also a life-size mock-up of the external fuel tank and booster rockets nearby, so you don't forget about those. (The other thing they kept hammering into us is that the bit that looks like a plane is just the "orbiter." You need the orbiter, the external fuel tank, and the boosters to make up a "shuttle.")
We paid a bit extra to take a two-hour bus tour that takes you around the whole site, but that's the closest you can get to the actual launch pads where the shuttles sit. (Two of them, 39A and 39B, but only 39A has been launching shuttles for the past few years. They seem to be converting 39B for something else.) The bus does take you out near to the border with Cape Canaveral, and they let you out for a bit so you can see the facilities across the water, which are now being leased to private space companies like Space-X. My favorite bit from that stop was when my father-in-law pointed to some previously unmentioned buildings and asked what they were for, and the tour guide gave a completely deadpan "I can't comment on that." I mean, nice FBI-worthy response, but you're a tour guide; you could at least say "We don't know" or "I'm not allowed to say anything about those" or something a bit more human.
In any event, we made it out to the launch pads, or at least, within less than a mile of pad 39A, where we got as close a look at the shuttle as anybody without clearance is likely to. The whole thing stood up on end like that is impressive. Slightly unfortunately, you can't see the orbiter when it's on the pad like that, partially because the orbiter faces away from the designated viewing area, but also because the orbiter is all wrapped up in gantry for most of the time it sits on the pad, which is a good thing, because it's out there for weeks. Still, very dramatic, especially knowing that we'll never get another chance to see it like that.
Other highlights of the "enhanced" tour were a close up look at the "crawler" that transports the shuttle to the pad, and the path it runs on, and the vehicle assembly building, or VAB (told you they like their abbreviations). The VAB is a truly huge building...a fact that's difficult to appreciate because there's pretty much nothing else around to give a sense of scale. However, one of the more impressive facts is that the VAB was built for assembling Saturn V rockets -- so when they assemble a shuttle in there, they only need about half the height of the building. As I mentioned, the shuttle is comparatively small. So why is the VAB so far from the pad that they need the crawler? Because the vibrations caused by the launch would damage a shuttle that was parked any closer than that. During one of the videos we saw, they explained that at X meters from the pad, the sound alone will kill you; at Y meters, the sound won't, but the shock wave will kill you; and at Z meters...well, the launch won't kill you, but the alligators might, because launches get them kind of riled up.
At the end of the tour, the bus deposited us in a building we hadn't seen before, elsewhere in the complex, which is entirely dedicated to the Apollo program. There's a complete reconstruction of the launch center from the Apollo 8 mission, with a whole movie about it, which seems slightly odd if you don't know the history of Apollo. Apollo 1, of course, was a disaster in which three astronauts died on the launch pad. As a result, the Apollo program was redesigned from the ground up, and resulted in the creation of the Saturn V, among many other improvements. Apollo 2 through 7 were unmanned, so Apollo 8, as the first manned mission since the disaster, was a big deal, both in terms of the science, and for the national spirit. So that's why it rates such a big commemoration at the Space Center. Best of all, after you've seen everything else, you're funneled into a truly huge room with a complete Saturn V lying on its side, separated into stages so you can see all of it. The films frequently refer to it as "the most complicated machine ever built," and I believe it.
This trip also let us experience a typical Florida happening that we hadn't seen yet -- the severe afternoon thunderstorm. After we got back from the tour, most of the adults went to see an IMAX about the space station, but Sparky declined on the grounds that he and I had already seen it at the Franklin Institute (true, although I don't know if that's the whole reason). So we wandered around looking at the other exhibits until the IMAX let out. The visitor's center is made of a bunch of different buildings that aren't connected, so you have to walk outside to get from one exhibit to the next. We thought we might sit down for a bit at a picnic table with an umbrella, but a staff member came along tying up the umbrellas just as we got there. He'd heard there was going to be a storm, and he was battening down the hatches. So I checked out the radar on my phone, but that was quickly unnecessary, as the wind picked up sharply, some ominous black clouds rolled in, and announcements started coming over the loudspeaker advising people to go inside, away from all the standing rockets. So once the IMAX let out, we left rather quickly before the rain proper could start, and just barely made it. It was awfully heavy, and the wind was fierce, but I got the impression that it wasn't anything too unusual for Florida, which after all deals with hurricanes on a regular basis. When we got back to the hotel, I saw a report on the TV that the "rainy season" had started, and they implied that the second week of June was rather late for it to get going. So from that point on, I noticed the humidity much more than previously, and the afternoon thunderstorm became a regular feature of our trip.