Over Christmas break 2017/18 I went with my family to the Kennedy Space Center, Visitors Center. I had visited a couple years before, but didn't get to see too much, and I wanted to show my girlfriend as its fucking cool.
The vistors center
The visitors center is down the road from the launch complexes and NASA buildings on the cape.
It has a number of historic rockets setup into a "rocket garden", a IMAX movie theater, and the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
If you don't think everything to do with space is awesome, I don't know if I can do anything in this post to change your mind.
Anyway the historic rockets dot the area with area around it walk around and see the local rockets upclose.
A Titan II with Gemini capsule on top, (or atleast a reproduction)
After a walk around there we watched a movie at the Imax (don't remember which one), and it was at one of these videos that showed me the coolest videos I have seen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmLeGBIj6kw) and its the bending of the shuttle as the main engines light before the side booster do at lift off.
Which brings me neatly to the Space Shuttle Atlantis. The visitors center does an amazing job of introducing it with a 2 stage video taking you through the development of the Shuttle all the way to the retirement of the shuttle.
The Space Shuttle Atlantis as it was when it landed after it's last mission.
The large crafts sits hanging with its cargo doors open. It is something to see, it is large impressive craft. The Canadarm hangs over the side.
There are tons of displays around with much to learn.
If you are familiar with the history of the Space Shuttle you know that there are some less happy bits of history.
The two disasters were both caused by flaws in deigns or engineering (or not) decision making.
The Challenger was the first lose of crew and vehicle and it resulted from a decision by the NASA managers to ignore the SRB (solid rocket booster) manufacturer engineers refusing to sign off on the launch (my understanding is that this temperature was below the minimum for launch which puts it out of spec). This is a text book case study for engineering ethics and must be studied by all Canadian engineering students.
This room is truly moving. The left panle is from the challgner and the right is the windows from the Columbia
The Columbia was damaged on launch and wasn't equipped to check from damage or to repair. It was chosen to not tell the crew and not to try a rescue (it was technically possible, but very unlikely)
Columbia wind shield frames
If you ever visit, you must find this room. It is not easy to find and lots of people walk right by, but it is a must see.
We then went on a bus tour of the launch pads.
There are dolphins and porpoises in the water around the cape.
Apollo launch tower
There weren't any good photos from the rest of the tour
A Saturn V rocket, its pretty huge
The Apollo 14 command capsule, (this thing went to the moon)
Moon parts
The best I could do with the light.
Thanks for reading