Kennedy Space Centre

We spent two most fascinating days at the NASA base at Cape Canaveral Florida, specifically at the Kennedy Space Centre and the Astronauts Hall of Fame. This sounds like a long visit for two baby boomer adults, but it is a most awesome place, and it is very moving to be at and view the actual site of most of the action of the space age. The most advanced technology in the world is developed and employed here, and for technologist Mike, Cape Canaveral is thus a holy place.

Visits to the NASA facilities are managed from the Kennedy Space Centre, and the whole place has the touch and feel of a theme park (which is unfortunate but probably the best way of managing the crowds of visitors), and as one bus driver put it, Cape Canaveral is not a theme park, it is the real thing!

Buses are used to move visitors around the huge NASA base - these are driven and hosted by enthusiastic and knowledgable guides, at least some of whom were previously engineers or technicians at the site. You can get off the buses at several locations and then get back on any following bus at your leisure. This process works quite well, but the queues and waits to get on the buses are quite irritating, and take up a lot of time.

We took a stop at a visitors gantry where we could see the gigantic building (the tallest single story building in the world?) where the rockets and shuttles are assembled before being moved on huge crawlers (along dirt roads) to the launch pad. We saw the shuttle Atlantis at the launchpad being readied for its next launch on 7 February [photo].

Possibly the highlight of the bus tour was the stop at the Apollo/Saturn V Centre (well, they spell it "center") which includes a visit to the actual control room used for Apollo missions to the moon, and there is a stunning simulation of a launch in this very room. In an adjacent huge hangar type building, we got a very close look at the one complete spare Saturn V rocket left over from this project. Everyone is gobsmacked at this, it is so, so big [photo].The NASA people have done a fantastic job with this display.

Looking at this rocket close up, and the examples of various Apollo, Gemini, Mercury etc modules etc which proliferate at the Kennedy Space Centre makes you realise what a tremendous undertaking these missions were, how complicated and vulnerable everything looks. It made us truly appreciate the miracle that these things worked at all - what a testament to the skills and persistence of everyone involved, and a tribute to the bravery of the astronauts who put their faith and their lives in the hands of everyone who worked in these projects.

A lower key visit on the bus tour is a visit to the facility where assembly of the International Space Station takes place. We could see, through double glazing, the clean area where the various bits and pieces are assembled and tested.

The Kennedy Space Centre itself, where these bus trips start from, really is just a theme park, with activities for children, rides (simulators), and junk food on sale. But there is interesting stuff there, such as the "rocket garden" [photo], and whole buildings devoted to early space exploration, and how robots pave the way for manned missions to Mars. At the Imax theatre, we saw a 3D movie actually taken at the International Space Centre, and it was just fantastic to see those scientists and engineers working and playing in genuine zero gravity.

While the whole place is undeniably upbeat, the planners here did not shy away from the highlighting the risks of space travel and the tragedies which have occurred. There are sombre reminders and memorials to the astronauts who have died in space travel accidents.

The Astronaut's Hall of Fame was particularly interesting but despite the theme being to honour those people who have gone into space, we found it disappointing that Yuri Gargarin, the first man into space (but not an American), was omitted. If there was any reference to him in the Hall of Fame, it's pretty subtle and we missed it. American patriotism is justifiable and understandable, but we really felt that this was an omission in the Hall of Fame. The role of the Russians in the early days of the space race is however covered in the historical exhibits elsewhere, and the role of other countries in the International Space Station is also recognised.

At the end of our visit to the Kennedy Space Centre, we sat in the shade (it was cold on our first day's visit, and hot on the next) consuming hot dogs and coffee, and we looked at all the young people visiting with their parents. We realised that all the space race and the moon landing program is ancient history to them, often having taken place before they were born. The visit to the Space Centre cannot mean the same to these people as it does to us. We have lived through this most exciting period of history - we remember peering in the sky at the Sputnik as it circled overhead, and (at a local shopping centre once lunchtime) we watched grainy black and white TV images of Neil Armstrong taking that step onto the moon live, as he actually did it; we held our breath with the rest of the world as Apollo 13 (not actually commanded by Tom Hanks) limped back to earth.

We earnestly hope that younger generations have and take the same opportunities to marvel and be excited if not enthralled at the advances in space exploration that the International Space Station, the renewed moon program and proposed future missions to Mars promise.

During our visit to Cape Canaveral, it was particularly gratifying to realise that the whole NASA installation is in the middle of a giant wildlife refuge, and to see this celebrated at the Centre. We saw numerous alligators as we drove to and from the Centre, and also had the chance to glimpse at a bald eagle guarding its nest.