Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Monday in Melbourne Beach

We headed out to visit the Kennedy Space Center at Merritt Island FL.  We viewed the VAB, Vehicle Assembly Building, the largest one storey building in the world.  This is the space shuttle garage where it is worked upon and the fuel tanks attached.  It is hauled on crawlers from the VAB to the launch pad where it sits up to 30 days before launch for final preparations.  It takes 8 hours to travel three miles from the VAB to the launch pad.  The crawler uses fuel at the rate of 1 gallon per 42 feet travelled.  We also toured the sky deck view of the launch pads, 39 (A) & (B).  Then on to the Apollo control center for a presentation in the actual command control center.  Later, into a large hanger area with a full Saturn rocket, 131 storeys tall, displaying the separation stages, also several other rockets, lander's, space suits, moon rocks and many other space related items.  We returned and viewed the rocket park while waiting for the Hubble IMAX theatre presentation narrated by Leonardo DeCarptrio. It was amazing,  An educational fun day.  G

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