Florida's Space Coast Part I: Kennedy Space Center

As we headed south from Myrtle Beach toward Florida, we made a one-night stop at McIntosh Lake Campground and RV Park in Townsend, GA. Lake McIntosh Campground has fairly widely-spaced sites, full hookups, and cable. Roads are gravel and sand and the sites are grass and sand. The campground is fairly quiet - they are less than a mile from I-95, and, although you can hear the traffic on the interstate in the distance, the noise isn't objectionable. We got a pull-through so we wouldn't have to unhook our toad. Lake McIntosh Campground is a good place for either an overnight stop or a longer stay. They also have an on-site restaurant, The Lakeside, which is nice after a long day of driving. However, we ate in during out stop. The photo below shows our site at Lake McIntosh.

 

Right across from our site was the lake.

 

From Lake McIntosh, we headed down I-95 the next morning to New Smyrna Beach, FL, where we stayed at New Smyrna Beach RV Park and Campground. New Smyrna Beach RV Park has roads that are sand and crushed shells. The sites are mostly grass. There is a good bit of shade from live oaks in the front section, but the back section has mostly palms, which are less dense. They were very accommodating and gave us a site in the back where we could get good reception with our satellite dish.

Site spacing is fairly generous. The campground has full hookups (including cable) in the RV sites, but there are also tent sites without hookups as well as nine cabins. Wi-Fi is also available. The photo below shows our site at New Smyrna Beach RV Park.

The campground is nice and quiet - no planes, no highway noise, and only a few, distant trains. From our site in the back section, we couldn't even hear the cars passing by on the road that ran past the front of the campground.

New Smyrna RV Park will undoubtedly be filled with Snowbirds in another month or so. Quite a few have arrived already.

We wanted to tour around Florida a little before heading to our winter stop in Bushnell. A stop at the Kennedy Space Center was at the top of the list. The area immediately around the Kennedy Space Center, which includes Titusville, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, and Palm Bay, is known as the Space Coast.

When we first began to research campgrounds around Kennedy Space Center (KSC) several weeks ago, we were unaware there was a space shuttle launch scheduled for the evening of the day we planned to arrived. When we found out about the shuttle launch, we were delighted to know we would be so close on the day it was scheduled to lift off.

The shuttle mission is to perform several "home improvements" to the International Space Station. The astronauts will install a new recycling toilet, a new galley, and two new sleep stations. The work is part of a long-range plan to boost the station's full-time crew from three to six.

A little while after dinner, we went outside to wait for the launch. Sure enough, right on schedule at 7:55:39 the sky to the south lit up as the rockets ignited. In a few more seconds, we could see the bright light of the rocket engines coming up over the trees. The photo below is a little blurry because we didn't have a tripod to steady the camera for the low-light photo, but it gives you an idea of how the shuttle launch lights up the sky, even though we were about 35 miles away from the launch pad "as the crow flies."

 

The shuttle arced to the northeast out over the ocean. We could see the booster rockets burn out and fall away. We watched until the shuttle was just a little dot of dim light, then we went back inside and watched a replay of the launch on the NASA channel on our DVR.

A few days after the launch, we drove about an hour to the south to the KSC. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in 1958. In 1962, NASA established its Launch Operations Center on Florida's east coast. The center was renamed Kennedy Space Center in 1963 in honor of the president who put America on a path to the moon.

KSC is located on Merritt Island (it was once an island, but now it's actually a peninsula) and covers 219 square miles. Only about 9% of the land is developed, and the remainder is a wildlife refuge. Since public access to most of the area is limited for security reasons, the wildlife is very much undisturbed. We saw numerous birds while we were there and even a small alligator near a pond along one of the main roads.

Kennedy Space Center has a visitor complex that has numerous exhibits and shows detailing the past, present, and future of space travel. Tickets are expensive ($38 + tax for basic adult tickets); but the visitor complex is so big and has so much to do, the tickets are good for two days, and you certainly get your money's worth. We managed to see what we wanted to see in one day, but it was a very full day. A bus tour of the facility is included in the basic admission price, but there are also extra-cost tours and programs that would take much more time.

The bus tour of the space center is the primary thing we wanted to do, so we went straight to the bus boarding area as soon as we bought our tickets and got through security. Security is tight, but not as unfriendly as it is in airports. Be sure to check the web site for what you can and can't take in if you're planning a visit.

Shortly after the bus departed, we went by the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) where the shuttle (properly called the orbiter) is mated to the booster rockets and external fuel tank and where the whole assembly is stacked onto the crawler that is used to transport the orbiter to the launch site. The VAB has cranes that can position components weighing thousands of tons to within 1/64th of an inch. The low building to the right is the launch command center.

 

The first stop on the bus tour is the Launch Complex 39 Observation Gantry. One of the two crawlers that is used to transport the shuttle from the VAB to the launch pad is stored near the observation gantry. The crawler itself weighs 6 million pounds and has a carrying capacity of another 12 million pounds. The crawler moves on eight gigantic treads, and its speed when loaded is about 1 mph. It takes eight hours to move the shuttle from the VAB to the launch pad.

From the observation gantry, you can see Launch Pads 39A and 39B. The photo below shows Launch Pad 39B, which is where the most recent launch of the Shuttle Endeavour took place. The white dome is the liquid-hydrogen tank with a capacity of 850,000 gallons.

 

The photo below shows Margery reading about the space shuttle rocket engine that was on display at the observation gantry.

Visitors can stay at each stop of the bus tour as long as they want. When you've seen all you want to see, you just get on the next bus that passes by to travel to the next stop. Buses run about every 15 minutes.

The next stop was the Apollo/Saturn V Center, which details America's moon landing program. At this stop, the Firing Room Theater re-enacts the Apollo 9 launch. The simulated control room is set up using some of the original consoles from the Apollo 9 flight. Apollo 9 was the first flight with the Lunar Module on board the spacecraft.

There is also a Saturn V rocket on display. The Saturn V is a multi-stage, liquid-fueled rocket used for NASA's Apollo moon program. The photo below shows the "business end" of the 363 foot long Saturn V rocket.

 

Also on display was a Lunar Rover that was used for astronaut training.

And what would a moon-landing exhibit be without a moon rock? They have a two samples on display including a small slice from a rock that you can actually touch. The sample was brought back from the Apollo 17 mission. Margery said it felt very smooth.

The Lunar Theater depicts the first moon landing (Apollo 11) using taped footage of the flight and scale models that are about a one-third life-size.

The third and final stop on the bus tour was the International Space Station Center. The International Space Station (ISS) is a cooperative effort of the U.S., Russia, eleven European countries, Japan, Canada, Brazil, and Italy. Work on the ISS began with the launch of the first segment by Russia in 1998. Several other modules have been added since that time. The ISS has been continuously manned by various groups of astronauts since November 2, 2000.

At the ISS Center, there are displays of modules that you can walk through. The photo below shows a module with biotech experiments.

 

In the photo below, Margery is looking at a "Waste Management" module with the toilet on the left and the shower on the right. Her facial expression seems to be saying, "Is this what I think it is?"

At the ISS Center, you can also climb up to the mezzanine and look down on actual ISS modules being assembled.The assembly takes place in an ultra-clean environment to prevent any type of contamination. All the workers must wear shoe covers, bonnets, masks, and disposable suits called "bunny suits."

In the photo below, the Japanese are working on their experiment module, Kobi (Japanese for "hope").

The Kobi project is Japan's first facility for manned space activities and aims to conduct astronomical observations of Earth and other celestial bodies. It is scheduled to be completed in time for a 2009 launch.

After we toured the ISS Center, the bus took us back to the visitor center where there was still much to see. Check back in a few days for our next post or you can sign up to receive e-mails of our posts. We have more to share about what we learned at the Kennedy Space Center.