Leaving St. Augustine we made our way back towards Orlando. Along the way we stopped and visited the NASA Visitor Centre at Cape Canaveral. What an incredible place to see!
The first men to land on the moon were launched from this site in 1969, and every human space flight launch in the United States since that time has taken place from the Kennedy Space Center.
One exhibit is a separate facility that holds an original Saturn V rocket and brings the story of America's journey to the moon to life.
We will miss the launch of an actual shuttle by 2 days. The Press and the public can sit in the viewing stands, approx 3 miles from the launch pad and witness the take off. Within 1 mile of the launch pad at a launch it would blow your eardrums out and within a 1/2 mile would burn you alive! We got to take a tour bus right up to the launch pad on the day we went, experiencing the enormatity of these structures!
The rocket mover (the machine that takes the rocket from the Space centre to the Launch pad) travels at a speed of 1 mile per hour, on a gravel runway. This piece of machinery was operated by 4 trucks on tracks and its top surface area was enormous. It travels along the gravel so as to not put out sparks to ignite fuel tanks. From Space Centre to Launch Pad takes approx 6 to 8 hours fully loaded with a shuttle.
Visit our photo album to see more pictures of our tour. It was one of our tour days when you start out with not much of an expectation of what you are about to witness, but walk out with your 'mind blown' of what this facility and its organisation has accomplished and the work they continue to do.
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