Kennedy Space Center

We left our room at the Super 8 in Daytona Beach around 8:30 and drove south on I-95 to meet my friend, Bruce Neale, at the Village Inn in Titusville, FL.  We followed Bruce to his house where we left our rental car and rode to the Kennedy Space Center with him which is where he works. 

Bruce was a social studies teacher at Cabell Midland High School until he retired in 2005 and moved to Titusville.  His teaching skills of preparing lessons, making educational information relevant to a diverse audience and public speaking makes him a great fit as an educator with the Kennedy Space Center.  In the nine years that he has worked there he has taken a variety of people and groups from all over the work through the facility.

As an employee, Bruce gets a few guest passes to the Space Center.  We were very appreciative that he was not only able to get passes for us but gave us a personal VIP tour through the facility.  As a product of the post-Sputnik generation, I was very influenced by the space program.  The heroes of probably everyone of my age were the Mercury and Apollo astronauts.  Many memories of my childhood were watching a manned rocket take off to orbit the Earth or to land on the Moon.  It was a walk down memory lane to see actual Redstone, Saturn I and Saturn V rockets.  There were a number of actual rockets at the facility that have done service in the NASA space program.  Displays also included capsules from Gemini and Apollo missions as well as space suits and interactive displays of the experiences of training and flight in a NASA rocket. 

One of the newest displays is the one on the Atlantis Space Shuttle.  A brief movie introduced the Space Shuttle program and the Atlantic space ship.  Then we were able to get an up close look at the actual retired Atlantis.  It is displayed at the Kennedy Space Center as it looked after the final mission without having been cleaned up or prepared for display.  Many displays in the Atlantis display familiarized visitors with what a Space Shuttle mission was like. 

While there, we participated in a simulation of a launch of a Space Shuttle.  The seats moved in ways that give visitors the experience of launch and acceleration to 17,500 miles per hour as they would on a shuttle flight.  It was a very realistic simulation.

Another great exhibit was on the International Space Station.  Displays on what astronauts do aboard the Space Station were interactive and informative.  The exhibit on the toilets in the Space Station was especially popular.  

We watched a 3D IMax movie on the building of the International Space Station was very good once we became used to the 3D movie. This exhibit was especially meaningful today since an incident was in the news this morning because an ammonia leak, from a cooling system was detected in the US living quarters this morning.  As a result, the US astronauts moved into the Russian section of the Space Station until the leak can be repaired.

The Saturn V/Apollo Center has a complete Saturn V rocket on display along with many artifacts that that had been to the moon such as scoops used to collect samples of lunar material, space suits for walking on the moon, a lunar landing module and several moon rocks.  We had a salad lunch at the Moon Rock Café there.

We finished our visit to the Kennedy Space Center by stopping by the education office and picking up some packets for educational material and to sign up on the center’s mailing list. 

After leaving the Kennedy Space Center, Bruce drove us over to the Canaveral National Seashore which is where we plan to go on Thursday.  There are many species of birds, mammals, wildflowers and aquatic live to be seen on the many hiking trails.  While we were there with Bruce, we saw wild boar, bald eagles, osprey, and many other animals.  We should have a good time there.

After returning to Titusville, we went to dinner with Bruce and his wife, Letha, at a local favorite restaurant, Dixie Crossroads.  Bruce and Letha had a salad with a bowl of clam chowder.  Mary had a dozen on the local rock shrimp that had been broiled.  She had a side of cole slaw and a baked sweet potato.  I had shrimp and grits made with the local rock shrimp.  They also brought their signature corn fritters to the table.  Everything was very good.

We were very appreciative to Bruce for giving up his day and giving us an excellent tour from an insider’s perspective at the Space Center.  We had a great day.  We said our goodbyes and drove back north on I-95 to our Super 8 motel in Daytona Beach.

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