Stalzer/Obele Family Blog

Today, we left for Kennedy Space Center. It is a “childhood dream” of me to visit the KSC. When I lived with my parents in the states, I always wanted to go to KSC but we never had the chance. Later working in California - well, it was just on the other side of the US. So today, we went there. It is about a one hour drive from our house in Orlando to Cape Caneveral. Something that is really startling me are the speedlimits on the highway. When I was a kid, if you only thought about driving faster then 55 on a highway you got a ticket. Nowadays, the speed limit is at 75 however I think I was one of the slowest going “just” 75 on the highway.

Another thing are the toll stations. We paid about 10$ in highway tolls oneway to KSC. I always wonder why in Germany the “Mautsystem” has to be so complex….

After having our “invasion of the love-bugs” (see Helgas report) we arrived at around 12:00 at KSC.

With the normal admission tickets, a bus tour of the facility is included. The last scheduled tour is at 2pm so we went to the bus station right away - we didn’t want to be on the last bus. The first stop of the tour was the observation deck for the Space Shuttle launch sites. We passed the VAB - Vehicle assembly building and saw two mobile launch platforms. Unfortunately it was very hazy - so we couldn’t see the launch sites very clearly. It looks very similar to the cement factory in Binissalem.

After a short information film about the Space shuttle, we went on top of the observation tower. In the middle of the tower was one of Space shuttles engine as an exhibit.

The next stop on the bus tour was the Saturn V, Gemini and Apollo missions site. Again after an information film about space flight, we saw a complete Saturn V rocket complete with lunar lander, rover, etc in an exhibit hall. It was very impressive. We watched another video about the moon landing (”That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind”)

Third stop was the ISS exhibit. After another movie, we saw some actual ISS modules and could look into the ISS module assembly - Impressive.

The modules being processed were from Europe, Japan, Canada and teh US. Amazing that all of the units fit together.

The boys were impressed by the “simple” things of life in the Space Station - like, going to the toilett, taking a shower, sleeping, etc.

Returning back to the Visitor complex, we wanted to get something to eat. To our surprise all of the restaurants, food courts, etc. had already closed at 3:15pm. So we had some cookies and went to look at the rockets in the rocket garden and looked at some more exhibits.

The boys used their chances to train to be an astronaut. 

On the way back to the mainland, we passed a draw- bridge. Right in front of us, the bridge opened for a cargo boat. Watching the bridge go up, we noticed some powerlines on poles right through the water - crazy.

All in all there were a lot of impressions of the KSC. The huge rockets, the gigantic Merritt island, how little NASA is actually using of the island, etc.

Again, I had my GPS recording our way through Kennedy Space Center. Here is our path.

Actually at the end of our visit, we didn’t find our car right away. By activating the function “back to start” my watch showed us the correct way to our car - Cool.

Today we decided to go to Kennedy Space Center. Last year we did not have time anymore and both Thomas and I really wanted to go this time. The boys were excited about space crafts and rockets.

Last time we drove further away from Orlando (on Sunday - Busch Gardens, Tampa) we drove through a tropical hurricane on the way back (Thomas read all about it and is now an expert on tropical and subtropical hurricanes, wind directions, ….). This time on the way to Kennedy Space Center we drove through clouds of Love Bugs. It is really amazing how many there are.

 When we arrived our car and most of the other cars were covered with these insects.