Today, we checked out of our hotel in Kissimmee, spent the afternoon at the Kennedy Space Center, finally found tacos, and checked in to a new hotel in Jacksonville.
Highlights
Visiting the Rocket Garden
This section is called the Rocket Garden (like rock garden, get it?) and is full of various designs of rockets that NASA has used through the years.
Learning about future NASA tech
This is a concept Mars rover that can carry people and equipment in a trailer.
Seeing NASA buildings on the campus tour
The big building on the left is the Vehicle Assembly Building, which is the largest building on Earth by area. Its footprint is 8 acres, and it stands at 526 feet tall. This is where NASA builds spacecraft and rockets, and where the space shuttles were built.
Pretending to be astronauts
This is a very rough (but climbable and nigh-indestructible) scale model of the kind of moon rover that astronauts on the Apollo missions would have used.
Seeing a Saturn V rocket up close
This is the bottom of a Saturn V rocket, one of only three still in existence. The photo doesn’t do it justice, but each of these F-1 engines is over 12 feet across.
Making a space nerd’s dreams come true
This was a pretty cool trip for Dillon, who loves space, and rocks, and space rocks.
Learning all about the space shuttle program and seeing one that actually went to space multiple times
This is the actual Atlantis space shuttle, which is now in retirement, and is suspended from the ceiling inside of one of the buildings at the Kennedy Space Center.
Trying (and failing) the simulators
Kevin found a video game that he wasn’t good at!
Learning through play
This was the last part of a space shuttle reentry simulator for kids, which had them run up and down some curvy inclines, and then “land” by going down a slide.
Meeting some upstate NY locals, who took our picture!
Apparently, this thing is nicknamed “the meatball.” This photo was taken by some folks who have a summer home down in Florida, but live less than 50 miles from us in New York!
Tacos!
Kevin got tacos from a taco shop (after being thwarted the previous day) and had some time to kill while they were making the tacos, so of course he sampled most of these!
Other photos from today
In a space capsule, you lay down on your back for launch, and hope you don’t lose your lunch.Say cheese, we said. Grayson said, “I’m going to do this instead.”Hold it … hoooooolllllldddddd iiiiiiitttttt …Grayson was excited to find a friend.Kevin fanboying a little.I think the point of these simulators was to show you just how difficult operating spaceship technology is, and how hard the astronauts need to train to be able to do it properly.I wish we could say they were related, but since we invented the kids’ last name out of whole cloth, we’ll settle for “cool by association.”Only room for three!It’s a sign.The early NASA rockets were retrofitted Army missiles. Talk about swords to plowshares!Prepare for liftoff!Our love is out of this world.Look, mom, I’m floating!This photo does the “zero G hair” effect pretty well.This kid is totally zen.She looks like she’s doing backflips.If Kelsey went to space, I guarantee that something would go catastrophically wrong and that she’d fix it using something random she brought with her from home.Help! I’m falling! Or floating! And who let me go to space in flip flops, anyway!?!?
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