Mission Control, we have landed!

My space nerd boyfriend finally had his dream come true. A visit to Kennedy Space Centre! So much to see and do! Exhibits, Imax films, memorabilia, games, interactive displays and a bus tour out to the launch pads! The space shuttle Atlantis and the Apollo/Saturn V Centre were two of the main attractions. The enormous Atlantis shuttle is suspended from the ceiling so you can get up close and view the burn marks from re-entering our atmosphere. There were so many cool things to check out, what they ate, how they exercised, the space suits and the tools they used. The original 1983 Airstream trailer, nicknamed the Astrovan was also on display. It was used to transfer the astronauts out to the launch pad. They loved the ride in this iconic vehicle so much, that the many attempts to replace the van were rebuffed by the astronauts, very cool! The Astrovan clocked over 26,754 miles driving back and forth to the launch pads! The Apollo moon rocket was also something to behold, all 363 feet of it! There were tons of rare artifacts, space suits, the Lunar Rover and rocks from the moon's surface, thought to be between 3 and 4 billion years old! Once again Mango was not left out, she spent the day on KSC property at the complimentary Astro Snoopy dog kennel! That dog is so spoiled!

The Rocket Garden

This space capsule took 2 astronauts into orbit for 14 days, to test how humans could survive space. Can you imagine?! Spending 2 weeks in such a tiny space?!!

Behind Graham is the Atlantis Space Shuttle centre. The rockets behind him are what took the shuttle into space!

The Astrovan!

This is a replica of the Atlantis pilot seat and Graham in his glory!

33 missions and 26 years!! Wowzers! Atlantis was the 4th of 5 shuttles built. Many of you may remember the 2 shuttles which were lost. The Challenger during lift off and the Columbia during re-entry.   

Alan Shepard became the 1st American to make space flight in this capsule, the "Freedom 7".  3 weeks earlier the first human, Russian Yuri Gagarin went into space.

The VAB, or Vehicle Assembly Building. It is the largest single story building in the world!

The 2 grey doors are 2 of 4. Each door is 456 feet tall and takes approximately 45 minutes to open or close!

The original Apollo command centre!

The Saturn V Rocket. Couldn't fit it all in one photo!

The Apollo 14 Command Module

Various space suits 

Mango looking for her getaway!

Side note… On February 20th Graham and I were lucky enough to watch a night time rocket launch!! Our campground is directly across the water way from Kennedy Space Centre so we had great seats! A Delta IV blasted off at 8:45pm carrying a GPS 2F-5 navigation satellite (a Global Positioning System Satellite). It was very exciting! Some of the other campers in the crowd had some sort of CB radios and we could hear the actual count down from mission control at NASA! The sound from the blast off took a minute or two to reach us, but was such a rumble it was amazing!! Apparently when the shuttles used to take off from there the sound was even louder! We recorded the launch with our camera, but for some reason I am unable to load it to our blog! Very frustrating! I will keep trying and hopefully we can share it with you soon!