#WDW2017 - Kennedy Space Center!

Luckily everyone woke up not feeling too terrible.  After having some breakfast, the crew loaded up in the van and made their way to Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral) which is about 1 hr away from the hotel.

T wasn't feeling the greatest so we were hoping he would last the trip, and he did for the most part.  He wasn't his usual self in that he wanted to cuddle a lot but Lola didn't mind too much.

The drive was pretty good - we had a hitch hiker for the first part of the journey as a gecko / lizard was clinging to the van wiper arm:

I think Lola was too slow to get a picture of the hitch hiker

Once at Kennedy Space Center, the crew made their way to talk to the information desks to ask about tours.  DD had learned that SpaceX was planning a launch of one of their rockets next Saturday and that they already had the rocket setup on the launchpad - he wanted to see if one of the tours would get close.  The lady pointed out a few options but wasn't sure how close one of the tours would actually get since the rocket is setup.  Instead of taking the 2.5 hrs tour, the team decided to take the normal tour to the Vehicle Assembly Building and then to the Saturn V center.  And they were not disappointed.

One the drive, the bus driver showed everyone the location of a bald eagle's nest, which apparently can weight as much as 800 lbs and has been around for over 50 years.  Sorry folks, no picture of it as this was on the other side of the bus from AA.

The first tour around VAB showed us the 4th largest building by volume in the world (#1 is the Boeing 747 plant in Seattle).  Just to give perspective - each of the stars on the side of the building in the American Flag is 6 feet across; the height of the flag is over 20 stories tall.  Incredible.

Around the side of the building is the new launch base for the new Space Launch System (SLS) which is being developed for the next Orion space capsules which will replace the Shuttle.  Pretty cool.

We also got to see the crawler tracks where the launch bases and rockets move along from the VAB to the launch pad.  Lola was impressed that the depth of aggregate was 7 feet.  Nerd ;)

Once at the Saturn V center, the sights were amazing.  You got to see each of the four phases of the rocket, the command module, lunar module and capsule all aligned in order.  It was incredible to see the shear size of this rocket.  The total amount of thrust from the rocket was the equivalent of 210 F-18's.

We continued touring around the center, finding Snoopy:

RR1 being cute

After a short lunch break, we made our way outside to see if we could find out when the SpaceX rocket would fire its engine in a static engine test.  At one point, we weren't sure we would be lucky enough but DD's persistent checking of Twitter paid off:

At 4:30, we got to experience the engine ignition for 3.5 sec.

It was awesome but somewhat less than anticipated.  I guess there is only so much noise that can be generated in a 3.5 sec engine ignition as compared to a few minutes of continuous thrust being generated.

After the Saturn V exhibit, we made our way to the Atlantis Space Shuttle exhibit which is a new addition since MBM and DD were last in Florida.  We were not disappointed with this exhibit, with the Space Shuttle Atlantis suspended in the middle building, it was amazing:

AA even tried landing the Space Shuttle in a simulator but failed three times - just when he figured out how to do it, his time ran out...

The last part of the adventure was spent wandering through Space Ship Gardens with full-scale models of the different types of Space Craft that were used by the USA during the Space Race:

DD and kiddos riding in the Apollo capsule

This was by far AA's favourite part of the trip and could have easily spent  3 days at the Space Center, not just one.  Oh well, MBM and DD said they will need to bring AA and Lola to the Johnson Space Center just outside Houston.  AA cannot wait...

The view across the NASA Causway