By Day 5, we’d pretty much exhausted all of the best attractions in St. Augustine, so we decided to take a drive down to see Kennedy Space Center in Orlando. As it turns out, this was worth every penny. It was the coolest part of our Florida trip!
The bas relief of the Mercury 7 astronauts on the outside of the Heroes & Legends building
Underneath the NASA meatball
Denali, Colby, and Christy in front of space shuttle solid rocket boosters and fuel tank
Denali, Colby, and Christy
Underneath space shuttle solid rocket boosters and fuel tank. This thing is huge!
Colby and Denali pose with Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space at the astronaut Hall of Fame
The shuttle Atlantis. It’s really hard to comprehend how big this thing really is when you see it in a photo. If you ever get a chance to see any shuttle in person, you should do so!
Our family in front of the Atlantis
Colby as pilot
Denali preparing for landing
Christy has a turn with the flying brick
Shuttle pilots?
Denali with the space shuttle main engines
Wayne with Atlantis
Wayne had to hold his breath to take this picture in space.
Shuttle bay with arm extended
I don’t have any pictures of it, but we also rode the shuttle launch simulator, which puts you inclined on your back and vibrates a lot to make it feel like you really are blasting off. Fantastic!
Next, after we grabbed some quick footlong hot dogs for lunch, we took the bus tour, which gives you a glimpse of the Vehicle Assembly Building, Launch Complex 39, and all of the facilities in between.
SpaceX launch pad at famous 39A
Another view of the launch pad and a hydrogen gas storage tank
Crawlerway - This extra wide road is used to haul space vehicles between the Vehicle Assembly Building and the two launch pads at Launch Complex 39. The double track is 130 feet wide.
The bus ride dropped us off at the Apollo/Saturn V Center. If you thought the shuttle was big, check out the Saturn V rocket below!
Denali, Christy, and Colby pose below the absolutely humongous Saturn V rocket
Saturn V has five engines
Denali is really quite strong...
This rocket just keeps going and going...
Check out some of the other amazing things we saw here:
Apollo 14 module
Astronaut hand molds (from glove fittings)
Moon lander show
Mercury mission control room
The drive back gave us a good view of the famous Vehicle Assembly Building, one of the world's largest buildings by volume. It is a single story building with very tall doors. Check out this video, around 5:22 (Note: there’s a little bit of annoying static on the video, but most of it is okay).
A very, very, very tall building. Again, photos do not do it justice.
Our day finished in the NASA rocket garden.
Rocket and flowers
Rockets in the rocket garden
Sun behind the rocket
More rockets in the garden
This rocket must be taking a nap
Saying goodbye to the NASA meatball!
Now go out and watch Apollo 13 or The Right Stuff or Hidden Figures or Space Cowboys!