We touched the moon today!
It was a long but chill day exploring the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral.
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Family reunion!
Our numbers swelled to 12.5 today. The more the merrier.
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After a relaxing family breakfast at Megan’s Cocoa Beach hotel, we headed to the Cape. When we entered the complex, we first drove past Jeff Bezos’ Blue Ocean complex. Then it was off to the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex to meet up with Megan and family as well as our Orlando dwelling cousins Chris, Raisa, and baby Winry.
Our first stop was the bus tour of the complex to see the launch pads and museums.
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The barge called Pegasus docked during our visit. This boat transports rocket parts manufactured in Texas and Louisiana, but too large to be driven by transport truck, to Florida.
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| This was old launch pad 39. We watched a simulated launch with lots of steam. How exciting! |
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| Next up was the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). This is the largest single storey building in the world! It is so tall and is used, not surprisingly, to assemble rocket ships. The garage doors on the side are humongous. |
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| This was the actual Launch Control for the Apollo 8 mission to fly to and orbit the moon. |
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| This was the capsule used for the first moon landing. Did you know that the pilots of this mission played a big role in manually landing on the surface because the ship was approaching too fast? |
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| These are the locations of all the moon landing sites during the Apollo missions. |
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| The capsule the brought the crew back to Earth. |
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| Seamus touching a moon rock! Incredible. |
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| The kids spent a lot of time in the playground. This was the highlight of their day (and Ian’s “lowlight”, lol). |
We explored the collection of rocket ships on the grounds. They are so massive.
Next up, we attended a talk by a real astronaut, Ken Cameron, who has been to space three times! He told us about the technology behind the development of the current space suits and shared some of the realities of impromptu problem solving in outer space. His talk was a bit dry and adult focused but the boys were extremely well behaved.
Lastly stop of the day was to see the shuttle Atlantis. This ship was special because it took off like a rocket but returned to Earth landing like a plane making it reusable. It flew to space 33 times before retirement and now sits here. It was incredible to see the real shuttle with all its scuffs and burn marks from reentry.
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| Behind the boys are the Atlantis’ two reusable rocket boosters and the one time use orange fuel tank that burns up in the atmosphere upon reentry. The amount of fuel (liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen) needed for each trip was astronomical. This was certainly not a fuel efficient vehicle. |
We rode the shuttle simulator to feel like what it would be like to take off from Earth into space. It was neat but after three days of epic roller coasters this trip felt like child’s play to the boys. They decided that a trip to space would be no sweat at all.
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| As you must at a space centre, we finished the day with space food. Freeze dried mint chocolate chip ice cream! It was a winner but very crumbly. |
At 5 pm we were the last people at the Visitor Complex and were nicely escorted off the premises by security. We said goodbye to Megan, Grandma Cora, William and Elise, who are headed back to Toronto. What an amazing visit. We are not without family though, as we have been most generously invited to stay with Chris, Raisa and Winry for a few days to regroup before continuing on our adventure.
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| Our backyard view tonight. Pretty gorgeous. |
