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Yesterday, Karl and I visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Oh! You didn't know we were in Florida? I guess I'd better start at the beginning. Last week I told you that Nancy's sister Elaine and her husband Karl drove from Michigan to warm up in Huntsville. Well, by Sunday evening we had driven to Birmingham to visit Mark, Jenny, and the kids; spent the night in Tallahassee; and arrived at the Summer Bay Resort outside of Kissimmee. Since then we've been kicking back, eating out, shopping, and in general waiting for the cold to move out. It's been in the 20s at night and cold and windy during the days. However, yesterday it warmed up into the 60s, so we left the ladies to do some more shopping and headed out for Cape Canaveral. There we tried out the shuttle simulator, went on an extended bus tour that included the launch areas, and finished up the day at the IMAX. We were impressed by the size of the facility. |
Oh yes! The pictures. The upper left picture is right at the entrance of the Kennedy Space Center. That's Karl on the left. The Vehicle Assembly Building (top, right) is one of the largest buildings in the world. It was originally built for assembly of Apollo/Saturn vehicles and was later modified to support Space Shuttle operations. It covers 8 acres and is 525 ft tall, 716 ft long and 518 ft wide. It encloses an astounding 129,428,000 cubic feet of space. It took 6,000 gallons of paint to add the flag!
A shuttle launch was scheduled for next week, so the shuttle Discovery has already been moved to the launch pad. The launch, however, has been delayed, and we won't be here to see it fly into space. I took the picture above from about a mile away. It was as close as we were allowed. Security personnel, armed to the teeth, were everywhere.
