Kennedy Space Center

Entrance to Kennedy Space Center with the Rocket Garden visible in the background.

Rocket Garden

Historic rockets that tell the story of man's quest for the stars.

Vehicle Assembly Building

To give you an idea of the size of this building; the doors are 456 feet high and take 45 minutes to open.  Each star on the US flag is 6 feet across!

Crawler Transporter

This huge crawler transports rockets to the launching pad on its own road designed to hold the great weight.  It moves at one mile per hour so it takes anywhere from 3 to 5 hours to get rockets to the launch pad.

Found this internet photo so you could see its immense size!

Launch Pad 39-A

Can you see the water tower?  It's used for sound suppression.  The 300,000 gallons of water are released just prior to engine ignition.  The water floods the launch pad during lift-off and muffles the intense sound waves created by the first stage engines.  Due to the heating of the water, a large amount of steam is created during a launch.  

Blast heat shield... Can you tell where the heat from a launch melted this heat shield?  They will refinish it and use it again on a rocket launch.  Next launch is February 20, 2014 where Air Force Delta IV, a GPS satellite, will be blasted into space.

Apollo/Saturn V Center

Mission Control Panels

Actual control panels for the Apollo missions - are you visualizing the Apollo 13 movie?  

Saturn V Stage 1

Flag painted on side of Stage 1.

Saturn V Stage 2

Where Stage 1 connects to Stage 2.

Scott standing under Stage 2.

Saturn V Stage 3

Apollo Spacecraft Command Module

This is where the astronauts live and work.

Service Module

A peek inside the Service Module.

This is a diagram of the entire Saturn V Rocket and Apollo Spacecraft.

Lunar Lander

Moon Rover

Moon Rock

Scott and I both got to touch a moon rock.

Bleachers for visiting dignitaries to watch rocket launch; this area is 3 miles from launch site.

Launch Pad 39-A

Launch Pad 39-B

Atlantis Exhibit Building

Walking underneath the power behind a groundbreaking space transportation system.  The orange external tank and white solid rocket boosters propelled the Space Shuttle into space.  Though the SRBs burned just over 2 minutes, they provided most of the thrust needed to launch the Space Shuttle.  The ET contained the fuel for launch and emptied completely in 8 1/2 minutes.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

Living quarters and flight deck.

The white heat shield protects the shuttle on re-entry.

Cargo bay

International Space Station docking port.

Remote control arm

Main propulsion engines

Apollo 14 Command Module

The view inside Apollo 14 also known as the "Kitty Hawk".

Shuttle Launch Experience

The amount of force on your face was unbelievable according to Scott.  I went up to the viewing area to watch him on this ride designed by astronauts!  Fun!  

Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope has taken many stunning pictures of our solar system.

Jupiter's moon Ganymede hidden behind the giant planet.

Butterfly Nebula

Saturn

Star

Dying Star; all of the above NASA photos I found on the internet so you could also see some of the images displayed at Kennedy Space Center.

Bald Eagle Nest

This nest is 8 feet across.  The same eagle pair has returned to this nest for 22 years, each year adding to its size.  Kennedy Space Center is on Merritt Island and part of the 140,000 acre Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuse.