Tuesday, 16 April 2019
Titusville, Florida, USA
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As I have a million and one bits of admin to catch up on this is a quick entry. They say a picture paints a thousand words so look at photos below.
Toured NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral. It’s brilliant.
Bus tour of the launch pads to see where the Space X Heavy Falcon launched from last week. The Vehicle Assembly Building is the largest single story building in the world. The US flag painted on its side is 21 storeys high. They transport the assembled rockets from that building on a transportation system that goes along at 1mph along a compacted gravel track to the launch pad. They use Cape Canaveral as the launches go over the sea.
There’s another Saturn V rocket (used for the Apollo launches) but as I’ve already detailed that in the Houston blog, won’t bore you here again.
Told that in the 1960s, they built a control building which had automatic sliding doors. One Monday morning after it had just opened, the security man walked in and found an alligator inside the building entrance. It had activated the sliding doors from outside over the weekend and had been trapped inside. They had to change the activation sensitivity.
Space Shuttle Atlantis is on display. It’s mesmerising. Shown a really good film of the Shuttle program and then the screen suddenly disappears to reveal Atlantis behind. Which causes a lot of clapping from the Americans. Hubble Space Telescope on display as well as the smallest satellite launched from the very final shuttle mission. The satellite, called ‘picosat’ isn’t much bigger than my mobile phone (see photo).
The Shuttle Launch Experience is actually quite good. Strapped into seats to experience the sounds and vibration of a launch. Astronaut tells us it’s the nearest thing to reality. Quite a clever effect as they release the fuel tanks and you’re suddenly in space. The floor moves forward down suddenly, from being in a backward position, and for a split second it feels like you’re momentarily weightless. Like going over the top of a rollercoaster, I imagine.
Extensive research and development is ongoing for a manned mission to Mars.
Hopefully it will be in my lifetime.
One response to “115. We have lift off”
Absolutely amazing photos – you have another career as a photographer. Mervyn and I went to the NASA base a few years ago but I have a very poor record of the visit.